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E3 Press Conference Grading Thread

Who had your favorite E3 press conference?

Results are only viewable after voting.
Only watched the big three conferences.

MS: Like last years showing, they certainly know their target audience. A very narrow range of games that will appease their core market. Depth, but little breadth. Cuphead was the only game to wow me.

Sony: Knocked it out of the park. Topped the PS4 reveal E3 by showing an endless series of games. Huge variety, and was home to the biggest three bombshells in E3.

Nintendo: The polar opposite of Sony. It's as though they went out of their way to provide the opposite of what their fans wanted. The Metroid abomination was the biggest E3 kick in the balls in years.

TL;DR - MS: Decent - Sony: Incredible - Nintendo: Woeful.
 
Microsoft - C (Recore looks cool, BC is great)

Ubisoft - Didn't watch it

EA - Didn't watch it

Sony - A (Last Guardian, FF7R, Shenmue 3, Horizon, Dreams, Battlefront, Uncharted 4, they just knocked it out the park)

Nintendo - D (Triforce Heroes looks cool I guess)

Square - SSS (OH MY GOD KINGDOM HEARTS 3)
 
All Sony's cheap, crowdpleasing announcements seemed like a lot of smoke and mirrors to deflect from the fact that they don't actually have any games coming out.

MS had a fairly strong show, but your mileage is going to vary based on how much you want to see sequel #4-6 of all their first party IPs. At least they have games coming out in 2015.

Nintendo's video was a disaster. That would have been a negligible Nintendo Direct any random week of the year, it's kind of insulting that they even commanded attention by putting it up at E3.

Fallout 4 is one of the games from the show I'm most excited to play, so seeing such an extensive demo of it during Bethesda's show was a real treat and the 2015 release bomb sealed the deal. Doom looks like silly fun, but if it's a corridor shooter I don't want anything to do with it. I think their show probably excited me the most.
 
I only watched the Sony conference in full, and about half of MS, and part of Bethesda, though I followed what they covered later. Sony is of course the clear winner - you can't really top the level of fan service the big 3 delivered. It actually masked the fact that their holiday lineup appears quite weak. But if the goal was to get people excited for games and their platform, it worked.
 
Here is my revised rating after watching all shows (ex. PC thing).

Sony: 8.5 Overall fantastic show with a lack of 2015 titles.

S-E: 8.5 Really enjoyable to watch with lots of fantastic surprises.

MS: 7.0 Not bad but also not very inspiring.

Ubisoft: 7.0 Ok

Bethesda: 6.5 Decent first showing but nothing amazing.

Nintendo: 6.0 Some nice 3ds titles otherwhise disappointing.

EA: 3.0 Embarassing. Battlefront was good.

Edit: Added Bethesda
 
Microsoft - C+ Solid conference, but it lacked any big hitter or surprise. Their gameplay demos weren't particularly good either (Gears, Halo, Tomb Raider)
EA - D+ Sports, Sports, Sports, Sports, Mobile, Sports. But they had Mirrors Edge and Battlefront which I'm excited for and Unravel looked nice.
Ubisoft - B Solid pacing and lineup. Ubisoft just knows how to do a entertaining press conference. And South Park was a really good surprise. As was Anno, For Honor, Trackmania and new Trials DLC.
Sony - A The Last Guardian, Final Fantasy 7 Remake, Shenmue 3, an awesome looking Uncharted 4 demo = One of the hypest conferences ever. It's almost irrelevant they hadn't anything to show for this year.
Nintendo - D- This one just hurts as a Nintendo fan. Paper Mario & Luigi is the only new announcement I'm excited for. The WiiU is really dead. And they managed to run Metroid and Animal Crossing, two of my favorite Ninty frachises into the ground at the same conference.
Square Enix - B Did not had high expectations, but I think that was a really good conference. That Nier x Platinum Games reveal was a real shocker.

So it's
Sony >>> Ubi = Square > Microsoft >> EA >> Nintendo

Did not whatch Bethesda and the PC conference.
 
Bethesda: B Fallout 4 looks good, not amazing, but I'm looking forward to it. Doom was surprisingly good. Dishonored 2? Hell yeah. But...CG. Need more. Everything else was meh.

Microsoft: C Not a bad conference, but I don't want to play any of the games shown except Cuphead and Below.

EA: D+ Horrible conference redeemed only slightly by Battlefront and Mirror's Edge. That interview segment was atrocious.

Ubisoft: B- The Devision looks fun. For Honor could be fun as well. Don't remember anything else. Also, lol concert.

Sony: B+ Hype, but hype for games far off. Can't get too excited about CG. Glad to own the console, but I'm not blowing my brains out over a remake of an old game, a kickstarter, and a game we've known about for six years. Horizon is the game of the show, though. God damn I'm looking forward to that.

Nintendo: D- Are you kidding me with this. Horrible ending segment, trolling Metroid AND Animal Crossing, and shit all for big releases. Literally only saving grace in Mario Maker. What a sham.

Squeenix: A- Best conference of the show. Gameplay. Star Ocean, Kingdom Hearts, Just Cause. Nier, what a shock. Also that phone game looks rad. Fuck y'all, phones are great.
 
Sony - 10/10
MS - 6/10
Ubisoft - 6/10
Square Enix - 7/10
EA - 5/10
Nintendo- 2/10

They can remove the puppets in Nintendo and it will still be shit.
 
I'm not so much in love with thw Sony one.

Sony 8/10 : the conference was amazing on how it was presented but what was shown had more potential. Shenmue 3 a kickstarter that doesn't remotely look ambitious as it should be. TLG should have released years ago, now it doesn't stand out among all those indie games, and well, gameplay looked boring. FF 7 remake, ok. Timed esclusives and DLC, whatever...Then Horizon and Uncharted 4 were AWESOME, the kind of games I wanted to see.

Microsoft 7/10: the conference itself wasn't that good but the games they shown were enough to pull a fantastic show.

Nintendo 4/10: holt shit. Starfox looks legit and the things we already saw (Mario Maker, Yoshi, Xenoblade) are awesome. But WiiU is clearly dead. The conference spent too much time celebrating Nintendo itself and Mario while spitting on Metroid.
 
Bethesda (A)- Doom looked fine, Dishonored 2 has me excited and they absolutely nailed it with Fallout 4. Todd Howard is probably one of the best presenters in the industry and announcing a 2015 release date capped it off brilliantly.

Microsoft (B+)- Halo 5 was decent but Gears 4 was a letdown. Aside from that, it was a solid showing of titles that I'm very interested in: Halo 5, Rise of the Tomb Raider, Forza 6, Cuphead, Dark Souls 3 and Fallout 4. Backwards compatibility is very impressive from them. Surprised that they took the engineering effort, but its very appreciated.

EA (C) - I'm a massive soccer fan who buys FIFA every year, but the EA sports part of their conferences are always the worst. Anyone who is interested in these games have already made up their mind and having fireside chat with Pele isn't going to change anyone's mind. Would have liked more than a minute for Mass Effect, but Battlefront was amazing.

Ubisoft (C+) - Fairly standard from Ubisoft. For Honor didn't have the impact that the Watch Dogs reveal did, but their lineup looks a bit worrying.

Sony (B) - Uncharted 4 and Horizon both looked fantastic. I understand why people are hyped, but Sony's big three announcements did nothing for me. Last Guardian is 5 years too late, FF7 is still years away from release and they asked us to help fund Shenmue 3 which didn't sit well with me.
 
Oculus = D-. Vague, confusing, and without a clear vision for their product. It's too early to predict the VR headset marketshare, but the Oculus conference did a massive disservice to the Rift.

Bethesda = C-. Nothing groundbreaking or terribly impressive. Fallout 4 will surely play well, but visually, it's stuck in around 2008. If you don't care about graphics and presentation then that's fine, but I didn't spend hundreds of dollars to play the past. Dishonored 2, well, we don't know enough about it, but I'm definitely looking forward to it. Doom looked bad, but I've come to accept that Doom will need a miracle to return to its glory days. Their conference was average.

EA = I caught bits and pieces of their conference, so I'll refrain from giving them a grade.

Ubisoft = Same as EA.

Microsoft = D. Recore looked fresh and Cuphead looks absolutely amazing, and backwards compatibility is an excellent announcement for those who still care. The rest of the conference was completely forgettable. Fallout 4 with Fallout 3 + mod exclusivity isn't going to do much to change the fate of the Xbox One version in charts. Halo 5 looks like another Halo which is good for the fans of the series, but it just doesn't resonate with me. Tomb Raider looked like a copy + paste of the last 2 Uncharted games, so I'd be lying if I said what they showed excited me. Bringing a car on stage was rad back in 1968 (as was the word rad), so the Forza segment was just a waste of money. Gears of War 4 looked terrible, and was easily the biggest letdown of E3 for me. I just don't understand why they chose to show it when it looked so poor. Nothing about what they showed made me confident in the game turning out good.

Hololens looks cool, but so did Project Natal, and we all know how that turned out. The Microsoft conference had a very clear lack of big third-party titles. From a business pov, aligning your money with the Xbox One is a big risk, so I get why third-parties are pursuing deals with Sony. With that said, the Xbox One will need as much third-party support as possible to make the platform relevant for the millions of people who have yet to purchase a current-gen console. Losing Call of Duty exclusives is the kind of stuff that raises big red flags for the future of the platform.

Sony = A+. Their conference will go down as one of the best E3 conferences of all time. They did right by their fans, which is unbelievable considering what their fans wanted. First and foremost, big congratulations to Sony for starting on time. It looks like they finally got their watches fixed. Moving along, The Last Guardian was a fantastic kickoff to the conference. It looks visually outdated, but the gameplay looks like a much needed breath of fresh air. Horizon: Zero Dawn showed so well that I found myself wondering if this was going to be this generations killer app. Beautifully fresh gameplay, phenomenal graphics, and of course, the voice-acting and writing seem to be right on the mark. The debut of Horizon reminded me of the debut of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. It was that good. Dreams looked like a fever dream, and I can't wait to play it. FF7 remake and Shenmue III - I still can't believe these happened. It's just unreal. World of Final Fantasy looks great - eager to see more of it. Firewatch looks stunning, and the writing has been brilliant to date. I'm very excited to play it. No Man's Sky continues to look amazing, and I'm glad that Hellogames chose to go on stage to actually show what you do in the game. They eliminated existing and potential confusion, so all that's left is a release date. Uncharted 4 looked unbelievably good. A lot of people have come to expect excellence from Naughty Dog, and they met those expectations and then some. They nailed it.

Furthermore, big third-party titles and exclusives made their way onto Sony's stage. It's been obvious for a while, but their press conference cemented the fact that the PS4 is going to be the market leader for this generation. At this point, it would take billion dollar miracles (e.g. GTAVI being XB1 exclusive) to change the marketplace positions. Crazy how fast the market changed.

Overall, we witnessed a legendary E3 conference. It's going to be a long long time until the 2015 Sony E3 conference is topped.

Nintendo = F. Their event was the exact opposite of Sony's conference. Nothing that they showed looked good, and they left us wondering what on Earth is going on with their key properties. I know the Wii U has been dead for a while, but it makes no sense to starve the platform of software given that the successor to the platform is right around the corner. No Galaxy game, no Prime, no Zelda Wii U, nothing. Amiibo seems to be the company focus right now, and to that I say "Welp". Starfox looked bad, Metroid looked bad, Animal Crossing looked bad, etc. Overall, a bad, bad show. I really wonder how Iwata and Reggie are still holding their jobs at Nintendo.
 
Bethesda - 7 -

+ Glad to see Dishonored 2.
+ Great Focus on Fallout 4 + the nice surprise with Fallout Shelter "available after this conference". Also great to announce Fallout 4 it's coming this fall and... I think if they would've waited with the reveal until the conference, it would've been even quite a memorable E3 moment.
- Doom unfortunately was quite generic to me, but maybe I had very different expectations.
- Rest was filler for me


Microsoft - 8 -
(very strong conference - used to be a 9, but was downgraded to 8 - I will explain)

+ Backwards compatibility - now this announcement was actually something that made me think of buying an Xbox One sooner than I intended to. However, after the conference, I discovered it's not really what I thought it was (basically I thought it means you can play any Xbox 360 game on the Xbox One) - this is also why I downgraded the conference to an 8
+ Rare Replay is an absolutely amazing package. Couldn't praise this enough
+ id@xbox games almost stole the show for me - beautiful and exciting games showcased
+ Forza looks great, as always
+ Sea of Thieves looks really interesting. Really excited to see more

= ReCore seems very interesting as a concept and I did like the art style, but obviously I wished they would show some gameplay or some details of what exactly is it and how it will play
= Fallout 4 mods to console is really good
= Dark Souls 3 trailer - really surprising to see it here, wished for some gameplay, but still happy with being this intrigued for now
= Gigantic looked interesting

- Tomb Raider was an absolute snooze fest (it kinda picked up after the gameplay trailer ended and the short game trailer began)
- Same goes for the Gears of War gameplay trailer, which is very strange since Gears of War was the series that made me jelly the most cause I didn't have an Xbox360. Those games looked so good, crazy and fun, which was pretty much the opposite of this trailer... I personally would've been more excited and intrigued if they did a few seconds teaser a la Uncharted 4 reveal than this gameplay trailer
- Fable Legends - is anybody actually excited about this? Why do they keep showing it?!

* all that being said, it really was a great conference and if not for the (mis)understanding of the (pseudo-)backwards compatibility and the disappointment of some of, what should be a few of their strongest games, it would've easily been a 10/10


EA - 3 -

+ Unravel - very nice, but having games like Mass Effect, Mirror's Edge and Battlefront and yet Unravel being the highlight of the show pretty much tells you how stupid I think this conference was
= Plants vs Zombies also nice

- everything else was embarrassing: Mass Effect should not have been there at all if that's what they had, Mirror's Edge was so rushed I had to go back to actually watch the trailer and I was so numbed out from the most monotonous introduction ever to Star Wars, that I really didn't care that much for the Hoth gameplay reveal (not to mention that people were already sharing the link here way before it started on the EA conference). It was a conference that really killed my energy and I'm not even joking - it was really difficult to properly wake up after that


Ubisoft - 8 -

+ South Park: The Fractured But Whole - they won me by starting with this. Totally unexpected, very pleasantly surprised - really loved the first one
+ For Honour - another unexpected and pleasant surprise I knew nothing about and really enjoyed watching
+ Anno 2205 - more awesomeness incoming
+ Trackmania - loved it. It looked crazy fun to me. Can't wait to play it
+ Rainbow Six - I'm still hyped about this game and really enjoyed watching those guy actually play it and actually talking.
+ Ghost Recon - I know there's hate here regarding this, but it was another surprise. It looked interesting and I'm not going to judge it right now based on the incoming downgrades. The whole Tom Clancy thing did get quite tiring though (too many similar games)

- The Division is extremely tiring at the moment. And given how many similar games they had in this conference they should've just said they have a demo in the booth and launch a beta with a soonish release date
- Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate - meh. It's obvious they would show this, but I expected them to emphasise more on how they learned their lesson and these are the ways they're going to rectify the mistakes and resurrect the franchise
- Just Dance - nothing against the game, but that was cringeworthy
- The Crew - another game where I don't know...are there actually people playing this game?


Sony - 10 -
(I really believe this conference will remain as a moment in E3 history that will always be mentioned many years from now, and while it wasn't perfect... if this isn't a 10/10, I really don't know what is)

+ The Last Guardian - this for me, no words. Only the feels. I wrote in another thread what this reveal meant for me. All I'll say is.. that was gorgeous and completely satisfying
+ Horizon - how do you follow up an opening like that? With a new gorgeous game you know very little about. And do you only show a game trailer? No...you start with a game trailer than you seamlessly go into a gameplay trailer that kinda looks too beautiful to be true and delivers an intense combat encounter
+ No Man's Sky - yup, I'm one of those guys. Every time I see something of this my mind blows up and starts wandering through space
+ Final Fantasy 7 Remake -
+ Shenmue 3 - this was a historic moment in gaming and will be remembered for a long time. For some it will prove that there is someone listening, for others it will be an evil and disturbing point in gaming given the controversial kickstarter debacle, etc. Either way, for many many reasons this was a very important moment in gaming
+ Uncharted 4 - amazing. It was actually so good I was convincing myself some of those things were not really gameplay
+ Devolver games - it's funny that these indie games were put in between FF7 and Shenmue as a sort of a "take a break" moment and probably most people were still kind of screaming or recovering from FF7 while these games were shown, but they looked freaking rad - Eitr and Mother Russia Bleeds actually made me go "wait...what's this? where do i get it?"

= Hitman trailer - very cool trailer, wish they had some gameplay
= Batman: Arkham Knight DLC - really not a fan of exclusive DLC, but that really looked sick to the point of confusing to me.
= Dreams - if I understand it properly, this interests me a lot more than for "gaming"
= Battlefront - looked great and because of the pace and the conference, it looked and felt much better for me than the Hoth presentation at EA

- Call of Duty - i really couldn't give two fucks about this
- Street Fighter 5 - the time allocation for this was a joke
- Destiny - pleeaaase staaahp

* I also really appreciated the pace and the (little) time they spent on Morpheus, Vue, Disney stuff, AC, etc.
 
MS: B+

Solid conference but they almost played it too safe
BC was the megaton of E3.
Happy Dark Souls 3 isn't exclusive
I'm very interested in seeing more ReCore.
Tomb Raider and Cuphead looked great.
Gears 4 looked amazing.
Had Quantum Break and Scalebound been present it would've moved into the A range
Pacing felt a little weird? Think the BC megaton should've been at the end.

Sony: B

Shenmue- an announcement of a multiplat kickstarter. I loved Shenmue too, but I didn't need a sequel.
FF7- most overrated FF game (personal opinion). Would've preferred XII remaster. I can't get excited for anything Square (non-Eidos Square at least) announces anymore. "Awesome trailer. See you in four years!"
Last Guardian- looked good
Horizon- Game of E3 for me. That is the Sony I want to see.
Uncharted- Naughty Dog amazes as always.

Take away MS's BC and Sony's Horizon and it's been a very subdued E3 for me.
 
Sony by a ridiculous margin.

Bethesda: 7/10

-Fallout 4 was pretty good and the customization really caught my eye. Looks like some good fun.
-DOOM didn't do much for me but i'll still get it just because it's DOOM.

MS: 8/10

-Halo 5 looks good and impressed me on all fronts.
-Forza looked good.
-Dark Souls 3 reveal.
-Gears didn't do anything for me.
-RARE collection is a nice bundle of game.
-BC is a very welcome feature.

-EA: 6/10

-Sports sports sports sports, 30 seconds Mass Effect, sports, sports.
-Unravel was beautiful.
-Garden Warfare 2 looks ok.
-Battlefront surpassed my expectations, I was weary of gameplay before E3.

-Ubisoft: 7/10

-MOAR SOUTH PARK, YAY!
-The Division looked good but of course downgraded.
-Ghost Recon seems ok, not enthused on the theme of this one.
-Rainbow Six looks good.

Sony: 10/10

This conference will not be matched for a longggggg time if ever in my eyes. Even if you don't really care about TLG, Shenmue 3 and FFVII Remake, there's no denying just how important these games were for a lot of people and how much it met to them.

-The Last Guardian was so many feels.
-Horizon looks amazing, really pleased with what I was considering Guerrilla Game's first RPG. Graphics, art, and gameplay all looked solid.
-Dreams is an interesting one, still not sure how to feel but I for sure see a lot of great things being made in it.
-Shenmue 3, just damn it can't get better then this. Wait a minute, yes it can!
-Final Fantasy VII Remake. The smile on my face must have lasted for the rest of the conference. The game that never seemed like it was being made was there before me.
-Uncharted 4 looks ridiculously good. Naughty Dog, I love you.
-And a side note but a big improvement was the pacing of the conference was fantastic, especially for Sony. The bombs were dropping so often you didn't have time to catch your breath.

Nintendo: 3/10

Just like many, many others. Holy shit was this disappointing. Wii U is definitely dead and they are shifting to NX.

-Super Mario Maker will be fun to mess around with for sure.
-Starfox Zero just did nothing for me. Graphically it looks cheap, like really cheap.
-Metroi.... fuck that it's not a Metroid game.
-Tri-Force Heroes was another one that just isn't going it for me.

Square-Enix 9/10

-Kingdom Hearts 3 looks amazing.
-Neir 2 was another bomb dropped.
-Star Ocean getting released in the west.
-Just Cause 3 looked good.
-Deus Ex Mankind Devided, wow.

PC 5/10

Overall as a summary, some good reveals and interviews along with a lot of cringe worthy moments and flat out product placement. It was one hell of a back and forth conference but needless to say, i'm for sure happy about some of the announcement made.

Edit: Write up.
 
Sony. Can't beat that trifecta, even if I don't really know what I would even play on a PS4 until Persona 5 is out (not picking it up until then)

I really want to heap shit on Nintendo - that was an incredible step back from last year's rapid-fire pacing, to say nothing of its disappointing content...
 
I consider Sony and SE's conferences basically the same conference since they bled into each other with PS exclusive games.

So they both get an S+, better than i could have ever imagined. Fucking NIER 2, FF7 REMAKE, SHENMUE, THE LAST GUARDIAN!?

Microsoft was a B-, it feels like something i should have been really excited for though.

Halo and Gears, franchises i would have freaked the fuck out over if it was say 5 years ago or so, now are just distant memories that i've already finished in the form of 3 for GOW and Reach for Halo. Since i still have my 360, i see no point whatsoever of BC either, certainly not as a reason to get an XB1.

They didn't show enough games i think that are different from their staples they pushed in the 360 era, the 3 main ones.

Rise of tomb raider im getting on PS4 next year so meh.

Nintendo was just...no. D. It made me really hope that they were saving their big guns for next year, cause i didn't want to think they were intentionally shitting on metroid with that kind of nonsense. The only thing that saves their conference from a full on F was Starfox.
 
Sony A+ High points: TLG, Horizon, FF7 Remake, Firewatch, Dreams. Sonys best conference ever, just games and megatons. They just blew my mind with this conference.

MS C High points: Recore. Safe and targeted at core audience.

Square Enix B High points: RPG fangasm
 
Sony- A+ : Greatest E3 conference I have ever witnessed in my life. I truly believe nothing will ever top that. After the ff7 remake reveal i thought i was going to have a heart attack. Some will gloss over it but the COD announcemt was huge for them as well. Basically they had the games of legends and every single big triple A multi platform game at this conference.

Square- A: Nier 2, kingdom hearts 3 gameplay, star ocean 5 that new rpg studio just a quality conference. The Hitman trailer made me interested in that game

Ubisoft- B+: south park thats all that really matters here. Did not think we would get another one.

Microsoft- B: good confernce for people that enjoy xbox games. Only game that really interested me was recoure the rest i can live without personally. But understand for others that was a big showing esp backwards compatibility.

EA- C: battlefront and mass effect the rest was pointless and I enjoy sports games but E3 is not the place to talk about them.

Nintendo- F: Garbage truck on fire.

PC: N/A
Bethsteda: N/A Did not watch but pumped for Fall out 4.
 
My thoughts this year:

Nintendo (Sunday) 9/10
+ The Nintendo World Championships came back in a big way. You can't buy that kind of publicity.
+ The Earthbound Zero reveal/release
+ The G4 host did a great job
+ Reggie getting involved was hilarious, as always
- A few strange moments (the maybe-sort-of trash-talking, the kid panelist)

Bethesda (Sunday) 8/10
+ Fallout 4 was the showstopper, and did not disappoint
+ The Fallout Shelter mobile instant release
+ A good mix of concept art and lots of live gameplay
+ The Doom reboot was a welcome sight
- The Doom reboot doesn't look particularly memorable or fast-paced beyond the previous games
- A couple projects (TES Online) seemed to bomb on impact, and didn't get a response

Microsoft (Monday) 7/10
+ No major screwups or gaffes
+ Minecraft Hololens looks very intriguing
+ Gears Ultimate Edition was expected, but coming to PC is a nice bonus
+ The Rareware library appearing will be a nice boost
- 360 backwards compatibility is something that should have been done at launch, not two years in
- Seemed to rely on familiar products to get the word out; nothing particularly mind-blowing

EA (Monday) 5/10
+ The Mass Effect-meets-Wild-West tease looked very interesting
+ Mirror's Edge is nice to see, even if it's a prequel
+ The Battlefront demo looks really good, even if the Playstation channel posted the footage earlier
- Way, way too much time spent on mobile and sports games
- Unintentional hilarity with the NBA Live 16 demo/Russell Westbrook appearance
- Pele is cool, but why bring him out if he's just going to relate soccer stories that have nothing to do with the game?
- Mobile demos that were DOA

Ubisoft (Monday) 6/10
+ Some very interesting reveals (Angela Bassett mocapping in R6 Siege, Ghost Recon: Wildlands open-world)
+ Aisha Tyler was very good, as always (she pretty says whatever the fuck she wants, and it's awesome)
+ The South Park Stick of Truth sequel
+ Somehow, the forced meme attempt turned into the actual "meme-man" joke on GAF
- Once again, Ubisoft showing off more Assassin's Creed gameplay, which all looks exactly the same
- The Division is the same demo/lame teamspeak trotted out again
- Jason Derulo's embarrassing Just Dance performance
- Just Dance, period.

Sony (Monday)
+ Doesn't even need a grade. Best conference of the year, and possibly of the decade. Fan wish-fulfillment in its purest form.
+ The holy trinity of Last Guardian, FF7: R and Shenmue 3.
+ Everyone in the company strutting around like badasses while announcing their product.
+ Even the Uncharted 4 demo was amazing, and it had a technical glitch that showed off that it was being played in real time!
+ No Man's Sky looks incredible, and significant support from devs like Media Molecule.
- Maybe COD getting exclusive DLC on PS4 is a bad thing for some people, but considering it's sticking it to Microsoft, I still consider it a plus.

Nintendo (Tuesday) 4/10
+ The puppet introduction was hilarious
+ A cool Starfox Zero reveal and explanation of the original game's creation
+ The Fire Emblem game looks interesting
- Way too much time spent on dev interviews and corny things like the Miyamoto musical performance
- Half the games people wanted are poor spinoffs (co-op kids Metroid? Animal Crossing meets Mario Party?), and the other games people wanted (Fatal Frame, etc) weren't seen
- An overreliance on anime games, with one still in untranslated Japanese...?

Square Enix (Tuesday) 8/10
+ Good mix of updates, sequels and new IPs
+ All of the games look incredibly polished and fun (Just Cause 3, Hitman, Star Ocean 5)
+ New IP from "Tokyo RPG Factory" and a Nier sequel!
+ Hashimoto trolling for massive damage
- A few moments were weird (the Nier director with the mask, the Deus Ex director telling the woman "Enough talk!", the translator fucking up)

AMD/PC Gamer Panel (Tuesday) 6/10
+ Not a bad outing for the first year
+ A few interesting tidbits of information (No Man's Sky simultaneous PC release? Pillars of Eternity expansion)
- Couldn't possibly live up to the Sony conference buzz takeover
 
Sony - 7.5 Trifecta megaton was obviously the big talking point of this conference and it'll go down as one of the craziest moments in E3 history. But while it was cool to see some of these mythical games get announced, those games are long ways off. They've got nothing for this year and their first parties were absent for the most part - no Polyphony, SSM, Quantic Dream, Bend, etc. Expected a far bigger Morpheus demo portion. Lots of exclusive DLC for multiplats which is good for Sony but makes for a boring stage demo. Horizon looked fantastic. Uncharted completely blew me away and was the highlight of the conference for me. It's crazy how good Uncharted looked.

Microsoft - 7.0 Nice mix of releases in the immediate future (Rare Replay), big Holiday titles (Halo 5, Forza, Tomb Raider), big upcoming titles (Gears 4), and some new announcements like ReCore and Sea of Thieves. The indie games they showed look really neat, Cuphead blew me away. Backwards compatibility was a very nice surprise especially with some being given away as freebies (Fallout 3 with Fallout 4, Rainbow Six Vegas 1 & 2 with Rainbow Six Siege, etc). Tomb Raider ice climbing demo was kinda boring, bad area to showcase. HoloLens demo kind of dragged for me. Sorta weird decision on MS's part to omit Scalebound, Quantum Break, and Crackdown from their conference. Very solid overall.

Nintendo - 2.0 One of the worst conferences I've ever seen, everything was so underwhelming. These games look like they're low budget projects shit out just to pad the release schedule. Very obvious that this is a transition period for Nintendo with their focus being put on NX. Only reason I even give this a 2 was for the fun puppet stuff. I had super low expectations and I still was disappointed. The Nintendo World Championship thing on Sunday was very cool though, loved the crazy Super Mario Maker stages near the end.

Third Parties:

EA - I was only interested in Mirror's Edge Catalyst and that delivered. The yarn game they showed looked pretty cool too. Rest of the conference was a total snooze fest, I don't care about sports games. They kept counting down "XX minutes until BattleFront" the whole time which kind of felt like a desperate please to keep watching.

Bethesda - I thought Doom looked kinda blah and I've never played a Fallout game before, but I was still very entertained with this conference. Really nice pacing and good presenters, Todd Howard seemed like a genuine dude. Like how in-depth they went on the demo stuff and Fallout Shelter was neat.

Ubisoft -Usually like Ubi conferences, wasn't feeling it as much this time. Aisha Tyler is always a fun host and she does a great job, but some awkward cringe moments. Sorta feels like Ubi is trying too hard now with the cosplayers, meme crap, etc. The games weren't really there this time either. For Honor did nothing for me... Ghost Recon at the end looked nice I guess?

Square-Enix - Just Cause 3 looks incredible and Tomb Raider very nice too. Not really into JPRG's but Kingdom Hearts looked very cool. Seems like they announced a lot of cool stuff, I'm just not the target audience for most of them.
 
Oculus - :| (Nothing much I was personally interested in)

Bethesda - :) (Aside from the expected FO4, Dishonored and Doom look cool)

Microsoft - :| (I actually can't remember anything from this conference. So I assume nothing interesting happened)

EA - :( (SPORTS SPORTS SPORTS SPORTS SPORTS SPORTS)

Ubisoft - :) (What they did show looked like pretty standard Ubisoft open-world affairs for the most part. On review, I'll bump this up on account of South Park, and the fact that they did have a decent variety of genres.)

Sony - :D (No explanation needed)

Ninty - ¯\(o_o)/¯ (Didn't watch)

Square Enix - ¯\(o_o)/¯ (Didn't watch)

PC - ? (Still not sure how to feel about this. Lot's of interesting info and ideas, but needs massive refining for next year)
 
Bethesda: 7/10
They didn't have many games, in general, and I'm only personally interested in 2 of them (Dishonored 2 and Fallout 4). That said, I went into this show not particularly interested in Fallout 4 (I liked Obsidian's take on Fallout 3 more than Bethesda's) but after their conference, I'll probably end up buying that game.

As far as their conference format goes, I think they had a good mix of presenters talking about their game and actual footage of said games. Not much to say, the conference was mostly a showpiece for Fallout 4 and Doom and they did a good job of that. Pretty darn good first E3 showing.

Microsoft: 7/10
They didn't have many games I was interested in (pretty much just The Division and DS3 to a lesser extent) but I think most of the games they showed were presented well. Cuphead looked amazing, though unfortunately I have zero interest in that type of game.They showed a decent number of games, which is always a plus.

Presentation wise, MS has a pretty straight-forward formula of short developer introduction> developer provides short game introduction > game is shown. It was very snappy and centered on the games which is a great. I thought hololens showed well and the backwards compatibility feature is nice for those that wanted it. Just an, in general, solid conference.

EA: 4/10
Personally don't have any interest in playing any of the games they showed.

First off, the countdown to Battlefront seemed so dismissive of the other stuff they were showing. In any case, I thought all the non-sports games showed pretty well. I especially liked the Old Republic trailer, though that game always has good CG trailers. EA has seriously got to figure out a new way to present their sports games though. No offense to Pele and whomever else they may have brought up, but those segments were so boring and they do it every year. There's a time and place for those types of interviews and whatnot - an E3 stage conference is not that place.

Ubisoft: 7/10
So I'll definitely be picking up South Park and I'll probably be getting Division and For Honor. I had wanted to jump into the AC franchise for some time now and I thought about doing it with the last one but it ended up being a technical mess so I decided to hold off. I think this new one looks pretty nice and assuming it doesn't have the same issues as the last one, I may jump into the series with that game. And though I'm not a shooter fan, I thought the Tom Clancy games showed well but what do I know.

Presentation wise, I've always liked Aisha Tyler during their conferences. She can be cringe worthy at times, but she brings energy and excitement that is sorely lacking in the presenters in a lot of the other conferences. The only real issue I had with this conference was the concert. Basically, my opinions on this mirror that of EA's sports segments. I get that they need to show off Just Dance, as it's a huge franchise for them, but there has to be a better way of doing it. Actually showing the game for instance.

Sony: 9/10
On the game front, FFVII Remake is a huge deal to me. It's not my favorite FF game but it is one of the most memorable (the feels I got at the end of that trailer) and really, the one in the most desperate need of a graphical upgrade. Otherwise, Horizon, Street Fighter V, Hitman, and Uncharted 4 are all on my radar. Uncharted looked amazing, technical issues aside as did Horizon, but I was a bit disappointed with how little they showed of SFV. And while not a big deal to me, I'm legitimately happy for the Last Guardian and Shenmue fans. As someone that has been waiting for the VII remake for years, I can understand where they're coming from.

Sony has gotten progressively better over the years when it comes to their presentation. They've really cut down on the amount of time they spend on lip service for the other branches of the greater Sony conglomerate, they kept the VR stuff short (which is good because you can sell that experience without having people actually wear the device), and they had a decent balance of CG teaser trailers and gameplay trailers.But yeah, mostly what they did right this E3 was deliver on people's dream games (maybe Half-Life fans should start bugging Sony about HL3). Only reason I don't give them an 10 is because a lot of those hype games aren't this year.

Nintendo: 2/10
I've never been a big Nintendo fan. I don't hate their games, but none of them compel me to buy their system. IDK, Xenoblade looks nice and the trailer was great, but I really disliked the first game and everything I've heard and seen about X is that they've basically gone all in on the offline MMO thing, which (imo) was Xenoblades worse offense. Fire Emblem is an alright series but I hate the 3DS as a piece of hardware. Starfox looked fine (well, not visually but mechanically).

So yeah...the puppets were fun. Whatever, it's a direct, no bombs were dropped, very 3DS centeric. Nintendo fans seemed pretty down on it as well so I don't think it's just my bias.

Square Enix: 5/10
So FFVII Remake again. Trailer's still great but I wish they had just a little more to show for their own conference. Kingdom Hearts III looked great and I appreciate that it was a gameplay demo (I also appreciate SE not trolling us by only showing that KH Unchained game because it initially seemed like they were going to pull that shit). I'm also really looking forward to Star Ocean 5, Deus Ex, Nier 2, and Setsuna.

OK, SE desperately needs to work on their presentation. I liked most of the games and trailers they showed but they presenters were so scripted, stiff, and seemed really uncomfortable/nervous. That last guy especially. I don't know why he didn't just speak Japanese and have someone translate like the others. I don't mind some Engrish (Yoshida for instance) but that was especially cringe worthy.

PC: 1/10
ZZZZzzzzzz......

So that happened...not sure why though. Honestly, I had it on mute most of the time. I was watching the conferences today along side the Game Trailers stream and the Larian guys were on their talking about the enhanced edition of Divinity OS. I initially didn't care for the game because of the lack of character personalities (which is a huge deal for me in RPGs) and I'm generally not a fan of old-school CRPGs/Infinity Engine-esque games to begin with, but that stream probably sold me on the enhanced edition. So in a round-about way, the PC conference sold me on at least one PC game.

In terms of games relevant to my interest: Square > Sony > Ubisoft > Microsoft > EA > Nintendo

Anything available on PC, I will likely get for PC but the conference had fuck all to do with that.
 
Bethesda: C+. Not a bad first conference. Not sure how they'll do another one next year without Fallout taking up half the time. Doom looked fun, and I generally don't like FPS's. Everything else I'm kind of meh on.

Microsoft: C. This was a really average and most predictable non-EA press conference I've seen. Outside of Recore and backwards compatibility, I feel like most people knew beforehand exactly what they were going to show. Their indies did beat Sony's but that's about it.

EA: D. This would be an F if it wasn't for Unravel (still waiting on those other two new IP EA). Their press conference started decent and peaked at Unravel, but good lord everything after until Battlefront. The only thing decent to come out of that besides Mirror's Edge and Pele starting to become a meme. There's something about Battlefront that I'm not feeling. Maybe it's because it looks a little slow to me. It wasn't something I planned on buying anywhere near launch anyways though.

Ubisoft: C. I'm not huge on South Park's humor but I appreciate that another one is being made. We need more diverse games like it. For Honor looks decent but I feel like combat in it might feel too similar to Assassin's Creed which I didn't enjoy (last one I played was 2 though). Anno is a series I plan to get into eventually so I like that another one is coming out. They're starting to rely way too heavy on their Tom Clancy games, all I have 0 interest in. I also thought the new Ghost Recon looked extremely bland artistically.

Sony: A. I've waited 5 years for more Last Guardian footage. I cried a tear of joy when it finally reappeared. Horizon looked great, and something I might get day 1 depending on how expansive the world is. While I'm not as huge on FF7 remake as most people are, I'm excited it's coming out and look forward to trying it for the first time. Firewatch looked neat. All Devolver Digital games are starting to look the same to me and I don't have much interest in them. Uncharted 4 looked great but probably not something I'll buy at launch as I have very little interest in multiplayer.

Nintendo: D. I had them at a D+ but then I started thinking what game did they show that I must have, and there were none. The only Starfox game I've played is Adventures so I didn't have the craving for a new one like a lot of people. It also didn't seem that fun to me having to look at both the TV and touchpad at the same time. Yoshi's Wooly World is something I'd play for an hour and never touch again. Both Fire Emblem games I'm meh on. The Metroid Prime game on 3DS made me laugh. I haven't enjoyed the series since they added motion controls to it so I wasn't as hyped for a new one. The new Legend of Zelda and Mario & Luigi games look like quick cash-ins to me. I'll probably get Super Mario Maker but I'm not sure how long it'll keep my interest.

Square Enix: B. The trailers at both Sony's and their press conference were lame (the FF7 Remaster announcement was expected though). A lot of what they showed also had gameplay which was nice. Kingdom Hearts looks beautiful. I'm pretty meh on all the western Square Enix games but they're all something I'll eventually get during a Steam Sale.

PC: N/A. I watched for about the first half hour and then off and on after that. That wasn't a press conference. It was a talk show.
 
Alright I'm going to base this off announcements and not presentation style, most excited game in bold...

Oculus: D+ Pretty bad with the Xbox One controller but want to see more of Insomiac's game Edge of Nowhere got my attention.

Bethesda: B- Solid showing of Doom, Dishonored 2 got me smiling and the extended showing of Fallout 4 with the 2015 release date.

Microsoft: A- One of the best showings from Microsoft in a long time, BC megaton, plenty of 2015 games, new interesting ip, HonoLens good showing (wait to see if true). Cuphead cool.

EA: B- Great start with the Mass Effect tease, Mirror's Edge looking cool along with NFS. Battlefront trailer was amazing, so many expected down moments with the sports and mobile segments. Shout out to Unravel.

Ubisoft: B- Best opening with South Park: The Fractured But Whole. For Honor displayed well, Ghost Recon is back, but meh towards their open world games.

Sony: A+ The best fan service conference I have ever seen. The holy trinity of TLG, FFXII Remake and Shenmue 3 had me going crazy. Horizon looked awesome, Uncharted 4 was a great ending. Morpheus section was lacking.

Nintendo: F Followed by one the worst showings, Only went downhill after Star Fox. Paper Mario RPG was ok but the Metroid and Animal Crossing announcements were FU moments. Wii U looking on it's last legs.

Square Enix: B+ The number of great announcements took me by surprise, Just Cause 3 looked great, KH3 had me hyped, Nier 2 was a legit shock. Star Ocean looked good, Project Setsuna was interesting.

PC Gamer: Haven't yet watched
 
Sony- 8, I really liked it it was good. So up beat at the start. I honestly dont give a damn about shenmue and ff remake. Tlg was good. These game are very niche. Horizon best announcement this e3

XBox- 7. Bad halo level to show, dont care too much for pirates, liked gears horror feel but still a boring part to show. Recore 2nd best announcement this e3 but ultimately not too much hype for it because no gameplay it just looked very interesting. Rare replay brought it up from my original score of 6. Hardware announcements not as exciting to me as software.

Nintendo 2. I dont even fucking know. Was like.... Shit.

PC- 2. boring. I dont know what it says about a PC show when the highlight is Microsoft announcing xbox ports.
 
Oculus: [D ]
No worthwhile games, awkward, terrible presentation. When you're showing off new motion controllers, don't just fucking talk about it. Show it off.

Microsoft [C+]
Rather boring gameplay presentations. Tomb Raider looks like it's retreading last-gen Uncharted, Gears 4 reveal fell flat, Halo campaign looked dull. Their announcement for backwards compatibility somewhat saved it though, that's a big get. The new controller, while crazy expensive, looks like a fucking dream. The Hololens demonstration looked like smoke and mirrors.

Sony [A+]
Started with a literal bang with a TLG reveal followed by Horizon which is probably my game of the show. Dragged a little in the middle but Sony blew off the roof with the FFVII Remake and Shenmue 3 one-two punch. The rest of the gameplay presentations were middling to good, but Uncharted blew minds at the very end. Unreal. A conference for the history books.

Those were the three i've watched so far. Can't wait to revisit the other ones on GB.
 
If Sony isn't a solid A I don't know what is. The new standard for excellence I think

MS crafted a good conference and I think they put some real effort trying to impress with things like BC and an onslaught of their big IPs a la Halo, Forza, Gears and Rare's new stuff. But they got upstaged, pure and simple. As far as trade show conference meta ratings go, it's apparent by the media and overall gaming community that they 'lost' and by a large margin.

It's nice to see new things from MS but if there's anything to take away from this year, it's that fan service is a very real thing. You know what to do next year MS
(Banjo 3)
 
Lol, I'll never be able to vote.

MS had the only new announcement to perk up my eyebrows (B/C for XBLA), but in all honesty, Sony brought the house down. I've long lost interest in TLG; never really liked FFVII; and am more than satisfied with the Yakuza series taking over for Shenmue; but still, seeing & hearing so many people happy for the announcements couldn't help but put a smile on my face. In these days where everyone is (mostly rightfully so) jaded & disenchanted with the games industry, it was nice seeing so much unanimous positivity for a change.
 
Bethesda: A. Showed off amazing games, release dates, amazing demos and everything you want from a conference.
MS: B. Idk how people are giving MS a C when backwards capability is the number one requested feature of both consoles. They showed off exclusives, new IPs, and games coming out this year. It did go too long in the middle waiting for something new.
EA: C Pele makes everything interesting. Not really.
Ubi: C+ Nothing too excited, but nothing boring. Jason Derulo needs to take his shirt.
PS: B- Completly catered to what people wanted. However FF is coming to others, and they linked a kickstarter to a game everyone wants but they didn't want to take the chance on it. Those three games were a smokescreen for how weak their first part game lineup this holiday. Uncharted looks amazing as fuck though.
Nintendo:🚮F what a joke of a conference. Just troll your fan base with metroid spinoff, waste 10 minutes on explaining a game that comes out next week, and Mario maker, sure we get it now. Star doc looked fun, but that's literally the only good thing in the conference.
 
Sony 10/10
Bethesda 8/10
Microsoft 7/10
Square Enix 7/10
Ubisoft 6/10
EA 2/10
Nintendo 1/10
 
Bethesda - 8/10: Doom and Fallout look great and Fallout coming out this year is awesome. A little disappointed not to see more of Dishonored 2. That Fallout Shelter mobile game actually looked surprisingly good. No interest in any of the other stuff they showed.

Microsoft - 5/10: We knew going into it that Crackdown, Quantum Break and Scalebound wouldn't be there, but given all of the talk about "greatest line-up in Xbox history" I was expecting more than Halo, Fable and Forza. I'm not interested in these franchises and unfortunately for me it seems they are MS's focal points at pretty much every E3 these days. On the other hand I really like Gears, but that demo did nothing for me. It would have been nice if they had actually shown Recore gameplay because that game is intriguing. The new Rare game looked okay. Don't care about backwards compatibility.

EA - 2/10: Awful show. Mass Effect reveal disappointingly amounted to little more than a title. I buy FIFA every year but their buzz-word filled EA Sports presentations aren't going to convince anyone that the games get any better every year. Pele. Battlefront looked great and Mirror's Edge looked all right (though I'm not interested in the latter). Otherwise it was one of the most boring press conferences I've seen. Unravel looked all right.

Ubisoft - 7/10: Had some decent announcements and it didn't feel like it ever dragged too much.

Sony - 8/10: I'm not really that interested in many of the things they showed, but I can still acknowledge the magnitude of those announcements. I was fully expecting Half-Life 3 to show up at some point (not really). Seriously though, Uncharted looks great as expected. Horizon looked good but the protagonist was way too chatty and I found that really irritating. I hope they limit that a bit in the final game. Realistically though FF7 probably won't come out for years, nor will Shenmue, and The Last Guardian releasing is something I won't really believe until it's actually in stores. All in all probably the best press conference I've seen from Sony.

Nintendo - 3/10: Nintendo actually has a good line-up for the rest of the year, but this was just not a good way to present it. There were no big surprises because everything was announced prematurely, like Yoshi, Star Fox and Xenoblade. I don't mind the Metroid spin-off but I'm a little confused as to who they actually want to target with that game. I don't care about Animal Crossing but that was an awful way to reveal a party game spin-off. I feel sorry for AC fans. Mario Maker looks great, but again it's nothing new. Unlike many I wasn't disappointed at the lack of Zelda because Nintendo already said it wouldn't be there, but I was expecting something bigger than Mario Tennis as far as Wii U announcements go. This was a showing to forget, and hopefully they can bounce back next year because it seems quite clear that they're putting the majority of their efforts into NX now.
 
Sony - B+ : Solid show and pacing (for once). Megatons weren't that great to me (just don't say it out loud, oops).
NWC - B : An entertaining show bringing unexpected hype.
Microsoft - C+ : Solid as well. Embarrassing that now BC is a major announcement.
Ubisoft - C : I was entertained. Aisha is great. Ubi downgrades.
Nintendo - D+ : Underwhelming new games. Too much on already known games particularly Yoshi and Mario Maker.
 
I only saw the first six conferences.

Bethesda: B+. The entire Fallout section at the end was incredible and Todd Howard gave great commentary as to what was shown on screen. Dishonored 2 also looked good. I never played the first one but that teaser has me interested. That said I didn't care for Doom and it dragged on a bit too long for my taste. The Elder Scrolls stuff was also bleh but I appreciated that they moved past it pretty quickly.

Microsoft: B+. I don't particularly care for Halo, Forza, or Gears but even then there was still a lot that I liked about the MS conference. ReCore, Cuphead, and Sea of Thieves in particular all looked really incredible. The Rare collection and Tomb Raider were also neat. Everything besides Halo and Gears moved along at a solid pace too which I appreciated.

EA: A-. Need for Speed and Battlefront might be my favorites of the whole show. Both appear to be exactly what I was hopping for them to be. Unravel was a nice surprise and looked really really interesting. Garden Warfare 2 looks like a great improvement to the ok GW1 and Mirrors Edge looks neat. Pele was also a nice touch if not a tad inappropriate for the show. That said they spent way too much time talking about nothing with NBA and Madden. FIFA, golf and NHL were fine but those other two were a drag.

Ubisoft: C-. By and large it was just more of the same generic stuff from Ubisoft. I am also getting really tired of the shitty material they give Aisha Tyler. Trackmania and Ghost Recon: Wildlands made up for an otherwise middling if not outright bad conference.

Sony: A. The whole thing was paced excellently. They never stuck around with any one game for too long so there isn't really much to complain about. I guess they could have spent a bit less time with Call of Duty but even then it wasn't that bad. Horizon, Dreams, Firewatch and Uncharted were the highlights of the conference for me.

Nintendo: D. I really expected more from Nintendo. Everything was middling and there were no real redeeming qualities outside of the puppet sections. They didn't spend any time at all talking about multiplayer or coop with Starfox. They didn't spend any time explaining how sharing levels will work in Super Mario Maker and they cut away from gameplay too quickly so it alway looked like random stuff thrown together with no rhyme or reason. It looked so good during the Nintendo World Championship, they should have just shown that footage again. The amiibo situation is garbage and they said nothing to address the shortages. The Animal Crossing amiibo game looks like poop. Would it have really been that hard to have it support amiibos from different franchises? The Skylanders Nintendo amiibo look great but I highly doubt I will ever see them in stores. Everything else besides Yoshi just looked middling. There was not a single "wow" or even "neat" moment in that whole damn digital event.
 
Sony: A+

I'm not even grading the other ones. They are not worthy. Sony killed everything. 3 Unicorns live on stage performing tricks and singing.
 
Oculus: N/A

Bethesda: B-
DOOM looked great graphically but very generic. Surprised that all we got for Dishonored 2 was a CG trailer. Fallout 4 is impressive for what it is, but doesn't seem particularly revolutionary and isn't my kind of game. The conference moved along at a good pace, although the Fallout segement was far too long.

Microsoft: B+
The entire conference had a great flow to it, and even though none of the games were particularly impressive I still left feeling that they'd done well. Halo and Gears were surprisingly underwhelming, Tomb Raider was good (but not great), and Rare's new IP was interesting (but not revolutionary).

The high points were undoubtedly the backwards compatibility (previous touted as impossible by Microsoft themselves!) and the kickass new controller. ReCore looked really cool, although only a CG trailer is a bit of a downer. Also worth mentioning is the incredible HoloLens demo with Minecraft - this will likely be practically useless for most games but it made for an incredible demo onstage. Overall probably their best showing for a long time.

EA: D
Absolutely abysmal, but first I should mention the positive stuff. Mirror's Edge looks incredible (apart from the fact that it's open world) and I can't wait to play it. Battlefront is everything that I dreamed it would be and graphically is outstanding.

Now for everything else - they promised 3 new IPs at the beginning of the conference and we only got 1 (Unravel, which does look like a great indie title). Mass Effect only had a vague 60 second CG trailer. I mean really?! I expected in-game footage or story snippets or something more. There was over 45 minutes of sports and every single second was excruciating. I seriously don't know what they were thinking bringing out Pele and having him tell us his life story.

Don't even get me started on the fucking Minions mobile game (I know, I know - that stupid Minion is "exclusive"). Halfway through their show I felt so insulted and infuriated that I almost stopped watching. EA really has a long way to go.

Ubisoft: B+
Ubisoft made some smart choices this year in leading with South Park and barely showing Assassins Creed at all. I like the fact that they showed lots of gameplay as opposed to CG, although it's still to be determined how the final version of The Division will compare to these showcases. I wasn't particularly thrilled with either of the surprise announcements (For Honor, Ghost Recon), but I appreciate the fact they had new stuff and showed actual (supposed) gameplay footage. They lose a few marks for that ill conceived dance sequence with Jason Derulo.

Sony: A++
What can I say? It was a thing of beauty and something that is unlikely to be repeated in our lifetime. 3 announcements I thought might never happen, and all occurring in the span of 30 minutes. I know what you might say - The Last Guardian's gameplay didn't look particularly engaging, Shenmue 3 won't see the light of day for several years, and the same could be said for FFVII. But it didn't matter. I was high for hours after that conference, and for that I applaud Sony.

I would have liked to have seen some more JRPGs and Indie titles (Square Enix delivered on the former later on), but otherwise it was a great showing. Horizon was even better than I anticipated, and the Uncharted 4 demo is undoubtedly the greatest gameplay demo of all time in my mind. I've posted my comments on Uncharted 4 in other threads, but needless to say my mouth was open for the entire length of the demo. Naughty Dogs, I salute you!

Nintendo: C-
Terrible conference by Nintendo standards. Star Fox looked like a gamecube-era game with stale gameplay, and everything else was a troll announcement. "Metroid!" But it looks like a weird mobile phone arena game. "Animal Crossing!" Er, sorry, we mean Mario Party with Amiibos.

Super Mario Maker does look good, but there was no surprise as it was shown over a year ago at the last E3. Mario Tennis looks decent, but hardly spectacular. It's Zelda! But for 3DS, and it's multiplayer. The only thing that could have saved the conference was Zelda WiiU, and they lived up to their promise of not showing it.

Square Enix: A-
First, the entire conference was very slow and had terrible production values. Despite that, the games themselves shone through and made their show incredibly entertaining. I liked every western game that was shown (ie. Eidos) - Just Cause is everything a sandbox game should be, Tomb Raider is clearly improving upon their first entry, Deus Ex looks seriously epic, and the pitch for Hitman as a service actually works.

On the JRPG front, I was disappointed that we didn't see FFXV but everything else was great. Nier 2 was really unexpected, as was the mystery RPG at the end. The downer of course is that all of this was just CG or concept art, in which case you could make the argument of why show the game at all? Despite that, I appreciate the fact that they went in all guns blazing. Star Ocean looked decent but really isn't my kind of game

The Kingdom Hearts showing was classic Hashimoto trolling. "Welcome Hashimoto, the producer of Kingdom Hearts!" Speaks for 2 minutes without a translator, then shows us the FFVII trailer again. "On the subject of Kingdom Hearts..." and shows us the mobile game X. "Now lets talk about Kingdom Hearts 3..." and we get a PR video with Disney Animation Studios. But then we finally got what every KH fan was waiting for and it was glorious. The game does still look incredibly early in development, but also oh so good.
 
Bethesda: B-
Fallout 4 is a day one buy for me and it looks great (besides not beeing made by Obsidian)! Don't really care much for Bethesda's other franchises, so overall enjoyable but nothing too great.

Microsoft: C-
Halo 5 showing was disappointing, Gears 4 even worse. Cuphead looks amazing! Overall
not too happy about the MS conference this year.

EA: Didn't watch

Ubisoft: Didn't watch

Sony: A- Megaton after megaton. Would have enjoyed this even more had they shown some actual gameplay for FF7R and Shenmue 3. Sleeper hit of this years e3 was Horizon as it looked freaking amazing. TLG looked kinda dated technically but still made a good overall impression. Best overall e3 conference in years.

Nintendo: D-
Sweet baby Jesus what happened to you Nintendo? Only redeeming announcement was the release date for Xenoblade Chronicles X.

Square: B+
Nier 2 announcement was more suprising than TLG/FF7R/Shenmue 3 showing up. Love it! KH3 gameplay looked exactly like I expected a current gen KH to look like, so thats good. Overall impression was that Squareenix is back on track making good games again. A very positive outlook in terms of games output.
 
Laughing Banana said:
Sony --> A++, so many stuff I am interested in, great showing of great looking games.
Microsoft --> don't know, don't particularly care about Xbox. Well, at least FFVII remake is as I understood first shown in their conference? But since it's out on PS4 too it doesn't really matter,
Nintendo --> C. Meh, entertaining stuff with the NWC but what matters most is the games and the only one that I am actually interested in is Fire Emblem Fates, and that's not because of the E3. The rest of the games shown are totally meh for me, though Mario Maker looks fun.
Click to expand...

Er, you must be confused as that definitely wasn't anywhere to be seen in the MS conference.
 
Sony - A+

Three of the most requested games of all time in the same conference. Personal highlight was Horizon which could be huge for Sony. A good mix of new IP, fan-dreams and a look at some games to come.

Microsoft - D

Very poor gameplay demos for Halo, Gears and Tomb Raider which is very odd for each franchise as they usually do so well. Microsoft needed to come out on top this E3 and I don't think they have done enough. Sony came out of top without really flexing their muscles.Personal highlight was ReCore - looks ace!

Square Enix - C
Some good games shown and a lot of content. Unfortunately for them FFVII and Tomb Raider had showings elsewhere which deflated the press event.

Bethesda - B
Great conference.

Nintendo - D
Just not good enough. They've got both eyes on the next platform.

Ubisoft - C
Nothing excited me at all. Very bland.

EA - C
Not very interesting at all.
 
Oculus: N/A, didnt see it
Bethesda: C+, Walked in expecting a total snoozefest since I wasn't that excited for fallout 4. Walked out feeling rather hyped about fallout 4 so damn that's awesome. Dishonored isn't my bag, the ESO stuff is kinda eh, and DOOM looked kind of awful.

Microsoft: C, The hololens demo was really the highlight here, also Halo 5 managed to impress me which was unexpected. They had a lot of cool stuff but nothing particularly outstanding, the 360 backwards compatibility was also awesome as hell.

EA: C-, again same thing, a few awesome moments but the only real showstopper they had was battlefront for me.

Ubisoft: D, One of the worst conferences of the show, while it wasn't for a lack of content either, they had a lot great stuff but nothing that managed to get me particularly hyped.

Sony: A-, A legendary fucking conference but my god after the three announcements from God it was an extremely slow conference with even the great additional content getting kind of side lined and nothing really feeling focused.

Nintendo: D+, and this is coming from someone who owns a Wii U and a 3DS, while i've previously praised their digital format this felt so discombobulated and disorganized. They were lacking a strong reveal and while starfox didn't look that bad to me it still didn't wow me and we knew it was coming after all and it looked like...well starfox with a gimmick or 2. The conference was definitely well presented and put together. There whole show felt like a series of snacks leading up to a main meal but then the restaurant closed for the day.

Square Enix: B-, Fucking NieR 2. MOTHER FUCKING NIER 2 OUT OF FUCKING NO WHERE. The rest of their lineup also looked stellar, I'm not personally big on Kingdom Hearts 3 but my god does it look like a joy to play.

PC: C, Strong efforts, the AMD 2 GPU video card was really cool and Day9 is an incredible host. Unfortunately it felt kind of draggy, and the talk show format felt a bit exhausting. No real crazy reveals either, but what can you do. The amount of xbox / microsoft support coming is also super cool.

Overall it was honestly one of the better E3's we have had in a long time, and certainly one of the most memorable ones we will ever have! The highs were super high, very few lows, but goddamn was there a whole lot of meh. All I know is that if you had told me at any point in the last 5 years that in 2015 AD, during the Sony E3 conference, the FF7 remake, shenmue 3 AND TLG were all going to get revealed to the world, I would have probably smacked you and told you to never lie to me like that again.
 
Microsoft: they said the focus is on games coming soon and that new ip and more exclusives would be shown as the year progresses. the end result is a conference that felt too safe. the games look good but we knew a lot of what to expect at the show. hololens has nothing to do with gaming and wont for a long time if ever. it felt like they had to plug it in there to build awareness. dropping the hololens bit in favor of some new ip teases would have gone a long way. Hopefully the stuff phil said they are intentionally holding back for other events this year brings some surprises. Tomb Raider looks incredible.

B-


Sony: sony dumped their purse on the table and said here look. it felt like they showed off a bunch of whats planned for the next two+ years instead of focusing on whats to come soon. there were a lot of titles, many which are multiplatform which is fine but the ps4 continues to ride on the should of third party software for the immediate future. uncharted looks like uncharted, very pretty but same old lackluster gameplay. the ff7 and Shenmue kickstarter announcements got many fanboys pants soggy and seem to be the big reason why sony is the pick from the show but both those games are late 2017 at the earliest. imo neither are great either, technically impressive for their time but nostalgia goggles are clouding opinions. plenty of good software was shown overall and sony did well to get people talking but it seems like it hasn't sunk in for many that you wont be reaping those gaming delicacies for a long time yet. for me the highlight was last guardian and that persona 5 is this year.

B+

Nintendo: people are idiots thinking nintendos show was a disaster. it wasn't anywhere near as bad as the wii music or pac man E3's and the direct itself was entertaining. if you combine the pre-e3 direct and this thing Nintendo showed a bunch of good stuff. The only big thing missing is a surprise tent pole announcement. Star fox looked more budget than I expected especially after the bayonetta easter egg but if you think about it that game has been in development for less than a year. Theres still a good amount of time for it to improve so fingers crossed. Metroid was the only big offender shown. It reminds me of hunters and no one wants more of that. It also looks bad visually. Its really weird to see this direction for a Metroid game especially from next level who have done some amazing Nintendo work in the past. Nintendo likes to drop bombs through the year so hopefully we still get some good surprises.

C
 
Well, I saw...

Microsoft: B
Sony: C
Nintendo: B
SquareEnix: C

In terms of games I'm buying this year?

Well. Nintendo had actual games I'm buying this year. So, I guess they get a B. Clearly, they give very little of a damn about E3. Especially since a lot of the games that would have been big applause moments at E3 were revealed way before it. Clearly, they were just going through the motions and I think I'm okay with that as far as long as we get more information about other stuff soon. I went into it wanting something for Metroid, some price drops and North American releases of hardware, maybe some Animal Crossing for the Wii U. We got a stop gap Wii U Animal Crossing meant to test the Amiibo waters for a full on Animal Crossing later. For Metroid, they gave us the equivalent of Halo Reach. I'm sure Federation Force is going to tie into 5 somehow. Maybe a dual narrative? Maybe they're going to use it as a last bit of storyline before doing a reboot? Other M was a bit of a mess, story wise. The last Star Fox game was a bit of a mess story wise. The story injected into the last few F-Zero games wasn't for the best. Maybe it's okay to do branded spin-offs to see what works before doing something proper. Star Fox Zero feels born of that. Super Mario Maker is ridiculous and I like it. Nintendo's conference was meh. Their presence at E3 though.. was superb. The lead up was great and they will probably announce a few things still. All they really need to do to apologize at this point is say: "Hey. Region Locking is gone for physical cards, however, you will need to have a separate SDHC card and a separate NNID if you want to use digital content from other regions." I did like Mad Max Bowser and Donkey Kong for that Skylanders whatever it is. I don't even care about the game. I just want those two. I would love it though... if Activision shared some of their "restocking and making more of rare things" magic with Nintendo. Seriously, so many Amiibo. I see that lady talking about the Yarn Yoshi Amiibo and I half expect her to say: "I'm making these by hand. So, please understand that this tray is ALL of the ones I have made so far." I need that Tom Nook Amiibo so I can pray to it for wealth every day. Also, is the new Star Fox going to have Amiibo? Because.. umm.. I have Fox and I'll cut people for Falco. I wanna use them in the game for.. I dunno.. something? No passing mention of Smash Controller, Binding of Isaac, or why (suspiciously) there isn't Earthbound Beginnings on 3DS? Only reason popping into my mind is a trilogy collection that you're trying to make more appealing. I'd like that. The internet would like that. I actually like the Developer Talks, but those should have been: "go to our YouTube Page for a Developer Story about this game." We're okay with logos and trailers. Clearly, other conferences were obviously beloved for having nothing real to show. Maybe an overly long gameplay clip of Link running through a ruin yelling at his horse.. without enemies.. any real score.. or any real sense of purpose would make everyone happy? Also, I love the weird muppet thing. I can only hope that next year they get Frederator to animate the intersections. Hell, get the Film Cow guy to do it. We're only a few years from a Nintendo Direct hosted by Foamy the Squirrel and Homestar Runner.

Microsoft was trying very hard to get me to buy an XBox One by playing to nostalgia and presenting a lot of interesting exclusives and timed exclusives. Not bad. But they kept reinforcing the fact that Wii U + PC is clearly the only real choice. Rare Replay is just so sexy. I need a few more games to seal the deal.. but.. damn.. backwards compatibility? Price drop? I recently found an XBOX at a Yard Sale, so I'll be immersing myself in your first product. You have my attention and I will be watching you. I kind of really want to love you, Microsoft. I really do. Keep going in this direction. Use your franchises. Maybe make something portable? Just saying..

Sony was sound and fury.. until you look at it. I like No Man's Sky and I can't wait to play it on PC. Shenmue 3, and The Last Guardian are all reused assets from previous generations with some paint thrown on them. Stale cake with new icing. The cake will be okay and we'll get the want for cake out of our system once we play these. It's Wal-Mart bakery cake that was made at 10am the previous day. It's still cake, but it is NOT delicious nor moist. Final Fantasy 7 Reunion is going to be a great trailer until 2017 when we finally get gameplay footage. That's also when I'll pick up a PS4 Slim. Especially since I have a PC and a PS3 and they are doing just fine. I also have a Vita too. Would have been nice to actually have something for it. At least SquareEnix seems okay with tossing a few scraps to the Vita with their future Mobile darling: World of Final Fantasy. Unch4rted looked fun and interesting to watch on YouTube. Call of whatever just made the lack of more Bioshock hurt even more. Seriously. Hitman looks good. I liked Matrix Reject Monster Hunter. Especially the chaining mechanic. Media Miniscule's "Dream of Dongs" creative app will be fun for other people. Some of the presentation was just.. so bad and boring. Also, Disney Infinity is nice statues stuck in a middling game. the ala carte Sony VUE thing is.. good. I like that. Street Fighter V is filthy, sexy, and dirty. I want that! A lot of decent and good third party/indie stuff.

SquareEnix needs to remember that ENIX is part of their name. I want more Dragon Quest over her. You know. 7, 8, 10, and Theatrhythm... just saying. Final Fantasy isn't as shiny anymore. I will be preordering your Bravely Second, thank you very much for that at least. Lots of mobile. I like their mobile offerings though.

I only saw clips of other conferences.. but.. Fallout 4 and Doom looked fine.
My game list to buy this year looks a little like this..

3DS
The Legend of Zelda: Triforce Heroes
Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer
Yokai Watch
Project X Zone 2
Etrian Odyssey Untold 2
Binding of Isaac
Mutant Mudds Super Challenge
Shantae: Risky's Revenge: Director's Cut
Return To PoPoLoCrois: A Story of Seasons Fairytale
Stella Glow
Rodea: The Sky Soldier
Chibi Robo!: Zip Lash
Hatsune Miku: Project Mirai DX
Senran Kagura 2: Deep Crimson
Legend of Legacy
Steamworld Heist


Wii U
Freedom Planet
A few of the same titles that are on the 3DS
Mario Maker
Yoshi's Wooly World
Xenoblade Chronicles X
Mighty No. 9
Shantae: Half Genie Hero

PS3
A lot of indie games of undisclosed names. I'll see what happens.

PC
A lot of indie games of.. well.. ditto.

PS Vita
I need to get those DR games.. Corpse Party is coming out.. there's a few things here and there. I'm just going clean up the list of already released games that I don't have yet.
Persona 4 Dancing All Night and whatever XSeed, NiS, and Atlus give me. Because they really care about Vita owners.


/End Salty Cynicism

I was entertained and I didn't hate any of the conferences. I'll track down and watch that EA/UBISoft stuff sometime. I remember like the weirdness of UBI Soft last year.

Overall, I think that everything will be fine.

I'm going to go play some Splatoon.
 
Mama Robotnik said:
The ones I watched, using my own rating system:

Microsoft's conference - as bright as a reasonably luminescent light bulb in a darkening bathroom.

Sony's conference - as bright as three simultaneous supernovas that have lit up the heavens.

Nintendo's conference - as bright as the flashing LED on a faulty smoke alarm, that has just accidentally been triggered because it detected someone's particularly pungent fart. No one knows why it's flashing, all they know is its messed up and the room smells of shit.

Reasons; Microsoft had a few games, solid but not spectacular; Sony had an incredible series of games; Nintendo's presence was worse than nothing, with a terrible selection.
Click to expand...


Zvonimir Boban said:
Microsoft - You've come home at the end of a long, stressful week to sit down on the couch cuddling and watching Netflix with your long term bf/gf. Nice and comfortable and you wouldn't want it any other way. Nonetheless your single friend's comments about being whipped still get under your skin. You've pinned your hopes on a romantic summer getaway which will hopefully show him that your life isn't boring and predictable.

Sony - You've just agreed to a date a fortnight from now with your old high school crush who you recently reconnected with online. She is the girl of your dreams, you never had the balls to ask her out when you were younger and you have spent years killing yourself over it. You will spend the next two weeks walking on clouds with a huge grin on your face, nothing anybody says can hurt you. Not even the voice at the back of your head wondering why all her smoking hot profile pics are from 2009 or whether that was young children you could hear in the background of your phone conversation. She's so perfect even your own brain is jealous.

Nintendo - You just had the most incredible orgasm of your life. So what's the problem? There's still 55 minutes left in the hour you paid for and all this escort wants to do now is make awkward small talk in broken English while you desperately try and get it up again. Please understand.

PC - A Turkish bear of a man leans over and whispers sweet nothings into your ear for two and a half hours. You're not really sure what the fuck just happened and you leave the Turkish bath house hoping that they turn the heating on next time you visit. It doesn't stop you boring your friends as you lecture them about how cultured and intellectually wonderful you are. Can't they see you're just trying to help them improve themselves?
Click to expand...

Kuro-Law said:
Sony: A why?
hype2qplvg.gif

Easily takes the spot for my favourite e3 ever.
Click to expand...

i fking love these ones...and they reflect my sentiments as well

Bethesda 8.5/10
MS 8.5/10
Ubi 6.5/10
EA 6/10
Nintendo wtfwasthat/10
SE 8/10

Sony 9.8/10 A bit more focus on new content for their handheld would have been nice and which is why I gave it a -.2 This conference is one for the history books and imho the best E3 conference EVER. A new bar has been set.

Funny thing is this is even without considering things like

Nier 2 a SE + Platinum exclusive coming to it / Some well requested media features coming to it being announced outside of the conference

Dreams looking like one of the coolest ideas ever

Another FF IP exclusive to PS4/vita with World of FF

Stealing MS's most valued third party partnership with Activision starting this year.
 
Of the conferences I saw:

Sony - A
Not one megaton, not two megatons, but three megatons dropped this year. And I care about all of them. Horizon looked amazing, Uncharted 4 looked fantastic, and we got footage of Battlefront running on PS4 instead of bullshots. No excessive media talk and no excessive Morpheus peddling. The only other things that could have completely destroyed everyone watching would have been a $299 price drop and/or Half-Life 3 announced and as a PS4 exclusive. The internet would never return from the implosion.

Bethesda - B+
Doom 4 ignited my excitement for the game. I'm not a Doom fanboy by any means, but I do like what I see, and going back to arena combat style multiplayer without regenerating health, YES! Give it to me. Dishonored 2 looks sick. Then Fallout 4. 30 minutes of it. The infodump was fantastic. An amazing first showing by Bethesda. Except The Elder Scrolls Legends. If I wanted Hearthstone I'd play Hearthstone, guys.

Microsoft - C+
They had a stellar start with the BC announcement and the new Elite controller looked amazing. Halo 5's Warzone multiplayer looks like a lot of fun. Cuphead is a day one buy as far as I'm concerned. As the conference moved on they kind of lost their momentum. The Minecraft thing with Hololens was a cool demonstration but he wasn't really playing, mostly just watching the other person run around then blow up the center of town. Gears 4 shown, but I couldn't even see what was going on for half the presentation, then the other half of the presentation I was wondering what was actually happening, my only takeaway being that it was definitely a Gears game. Rise of the Tomb Raider was kind of boring looking, more of the same from the first game. The Rare collection was cool, and so was Sea of Thieves. I need to know more about ReCore. Overall a solid presentation.

Nintendo - D
wat
I like what I see of Super Mario Maker, multiplayer Zelda, Hyrule Warriors Legends, Xenoblade, and Starfox Zero. But the new Metroid...
wat
No Zelda U (although we knew it wasn't coming). God help me if it's going to go to their next platform instead.
 
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