As for 2018... well, it's mostly a holding pattern at this point. At least I have time to go back and play Super Mario Odyssey now. It seems like the gaming industry fled 2018 en mass so now the first three months of 2019 will be jam-packed with electronic riches beyond your wildest imagination. Or possibly it will all get delayed to 2020. Take your time, video games, I still need to play Nioh.
What's really crazy is that by usual standards, E3 2018 should have sucked. Square Enix embarrassed themselves by coming to the show empty-handed. I can name more games that Nintendo should have shown than games Nintendo did show. (Where is Yoshi?? I'm angrier about Yoshi missing E3 than Final Fantasy VII.) Even Sony's conference was pretty bleh. And EA was EA, as usual. Yet there's still mountains of games. E3 2018 is like the greatest Christmas toy catalogue of all time. I have no idea how I'll be able to cover everything I want to talk about. So strap in, because there are thousands of words coming.
I'm going to follow the same rules as last year's E3 post. I'll only talk about a game if in E3 2018 they showed something really new about the title. So a lot games are missing here, even games I'm very excited for. There's no Octopath Traveler, no Dragon Quest XI, and no Ori and the Will of the Wisp. I'll also avoid talking about games that were only announced and had almost no details. I am spinning in excitement for the next DOOM, but I have to wait until stupid QuakeCon to see it. I really want to see more of Fire Emblem: The Three Houses too. What about that new Platinum game? Well, I didn't see anything about it, so can't talk about it.
KINGDOM HEARTS III, YO.
KINGDOM HEARTS III, YO.
KINGDOM HEARTS III, YO.
KINGDOM HEARTS III, YO.
KINGDOM HEARTS III, YO.
KINGDOM HEARTS III, YO.
KINGDOM HEARTS III, YO.
I love watching people who have never played a Kingdom Hearts before try to make sense of this. Kingdom Hearts in 2018 is an impenetrable snarl of lore that makes no sense to anybody except for us die hards who played every single game. To normal people, Kingdom Hearts III must seem like utter madness. Unless you started playing these games in high school, the fusion of Disney, anime, and enough background mystery plotting to make Hideo Kojima blush will never make sense to you. It barely makes sense to me either. We fans know Kingdom Hearts is bullshit, but wonderful, wonderful bullshit.
What I like about Kingdom Hearts III though is that the trailers so far have not focused on the Gordian Knot of conspiracies and Organization XIII nonsense. Mainly they've shown Sora having fun in Disney worlds, which is the right focus this series should have. Eventually we can go back to all thirteen Xehanorts and all 358/2 Soras or whatever we're up to, but in the mean time, can't we just have fun and play as pirates? Kingdom Hearts III has Black Flag ship combat. (RIP Skull and Bones, your whole reason to exist has been usurped.) Sora gets to meet Elsa and play in the snow. The Star Fox Gummi Ships are back. Also Kingdom Hearts III looks so good that regular in-engine gameplay looks better than a PS2 pre-rendered FMV.
Here's where I get negative because I have to get negative: I haven't seen much combat out of this game that looks very good. Actually the Rock Titan boss fight seems outright bad. This game appears, combat-wise, like the Kingdom Hearts Square Enix would have made in 2008, versus the one they should be making in
On the other hand, if you are not excited to see Sora cook with Ratatouille then you will never feel joy in this world ever again.
Cyberpunk 2077
Despite all the neon splendor of the Cyberpunk 2077 reveal trailer, I was underwhelmed. I am not over the pure agony that was Ready Player One yet (which is a solid contender for Worst Movie of 2018, if not the Decade*), so I'm not in a good place with Eighties techno futures. Or it could be that the main character CD Projekt Red presented was a painfully generic video game dudebro.
However, reports from E3 from people lucky enough to have access have reported that Cyberpunk 2077 is not that trailer. Tryhard edgelord bro-dude from the trailer is just a stand-in for a character creation system. The actual game is in first-person and is apparently ridiculously good. Journalists sound euphoric after seeing it. Austin Walker from Waypoint talked like a six-year-old describing his vacation to Disney World. He was babbling a mile a minute and gushing with joy. CD Projekt Red is not making the Witcher 3 again but at this point the hype is for nothing less than a game that good. If I made a game as good as the Witcher 3 I would retire on top and live a life of leisure. They're going ahead and trying to make something even better.
Just the "better" part hasn't been shown to the public. So when the heck can us un-chosen losers get to see gameplay, huh?? I want to feel the hype too! I know I'm an unwashed failure, but fucking let me at least glimpse the godhead, dammit.
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice
A From Software game that isn't miserable? What an idea! Shadows Die Twice is not a new Dark Souls which is as far as I'm concerned is a good thing. Those guys have been wallowing in brutal difficulty and depressing realms for so long I'm surprised they haven't all killed themselves. Here is something that seems actually fun. This is a big crazy samurai action game with a hookshot. That's all I need to be excited. Get me more games with a hookshot.
Ghost of Tsushima
Speaking of samurai, Ghost of Tsushima is another samurai game. This one looks even better than Sekiro. It doesn't have a hookshot but... damn those fields, man. Those are some nice ass fields. If you can, I recommend you watch the trailer in Japanese too. The English dub doesn't really match the Seventies Akira Kurosawa vibe this game is going for.
Beyond Good and Evil 2
I want to like this game, okay? I'm just a cynical fuck.
The trailer for Beyond Good and Evil 2 was awesome. I won't deny that. It was a great short film. However, it also was the second trailer in two E3s with no gameplay. In fact, Ubisoft pulled the camera back during the presentation specifically so you couldn't see the gameplay clearly. What I could make-out looked cool in a Skies of Arcadia skypunk vibe. But it also looked rough, like a game that is nowhere near finished. Beyond Good and Evil 2's pitch is for a huge open world space opera with animal people and airships. I'm down for all of that. Last year they said this game was set before Jade's birth and now Jade is the villain. I like a game that can't get its story straight, no sarcasm.
What I'm not down for is some of the other details that have come out about this project. For one the cool lady in the spaceship with an afro is not playable. In the opposite of Cyberpunk 2077's problem, you create a random animal character. I assume afros are still an option, but why can't I play as the cool black lady? How many games even have black female protagonists? (I can name an recent indie game called Dandara and one Resident Evil and I think that's it, which is really sad.) Also for some reason Ubisoft is choosing to explain why the universe is filled with pig people. Something about cloning and genetic slave castes. You know, I didn't need to know why there were funny monkeys and animal people. I didn't need the esthetic justified, alright? You're ruining it.
However the real problem is this "YOUR ART HERE" business. A lot of other writers have already given their takes on this. I think they're overreacting somewhat. I don't think this is really the apocalyptic end of paid artists or anything else. But, this sucks. There's fun little fan contests and there's not paying people a fair share. As somebody who covered an entire E3 years ago for "exposure", somebody who still writes for a site for "exposure", in fact, I don't like the look. The games industry has enough problems with their employees already without bringing in this. Ubisoft has enough damn money to pay people more than $50,000 combined and is big enough to find exciting new artists if they need. Don't crowd source your AAA video game.
Beyond Good and Evil 2 on Monday was one of my favorite games of E3. By today I'm pretty sickened of the whole thing.
Sable
My jaw hit the floor seeing this. Sable is most artistically striking game I've seen since the Cuphead reveal years ago. This trailer uses a sublime style to make the game look rotoscoped in a stunning way. The colors and line art remind me of the Heavy Metal movie or Seventies French comic books. Plus the music in the trailer is by somebody called "Japanese Breakfast", which is something I need to look into. EA had nothing to show with their Star Wars license this year, but luckily Sable is all the Tatooine desert adventure I could want.
I think the idea of E3 is to show the power of gaming. Sable is one of those games that showcase what this medium can achieve. Every game is groundbreaking in some way (except The Division 2 which is unjustifiable) and every developer is solving problems and doing new things with their technology. Sable is a game that shows me something I never thought was possible, something I never even considered as a possibility. Sable is inspiring.
So I hope the game is good.
Spider-Man
I don't know what Rocksteady is up to these days. I've made peace with the fact that they'll never follow up on the cliffhanger that Batman Arkham Knight ended on. I've also made peace with the fact that they'll never make a Batman Beyond game either. So if the next Batman game needs to actually be a Spider-Man game, so be it. Also basically nothing else is coming out in 2018, so it's either Spider-Man or Red Dead Redemption 2. No offense, but I guess I'm playing Spider-Man then.
Spider-Man says "hi" to a guy on the street which was my favorite part of Sony's entire E3 conference. This game looks like a lot of fun in a very pleasant package. Swinging around the city looks fun, the combat looks fun, all the supervillain team-up nonsense seems meh to me, but whatever. Spider-Man is a colorful easy-to-like game.
Assassin's Creed Odyssey
Lord help me this actually looks good. This game is lush, super lush. I love the Peloponnesian War. Assassin's Creed is slowly transforming into an RPG, and even a good one. But I refuse to be positive about Assassin's Creed for more than a minute. Moving on.
The Last of Us Part II
I will definitely give Sony some respect for opening their conference with a lesbian kiss. Did I like the moment because of a pro-LGBT agenda or just pervy male fetishes? Even I don't know! The Last of Us Part II opened with something really sweet and properly sultry. In an industry that mostly knows how to express itself with violence and death that's actually big deal. Not a lot of games manage to have good kisses, as sad as that sounds. So I'm down with this. Imagine a Last of Us 2 about constructing relationships, and rebuilding a sense of humanity. It's really nic--
--Oh, now Ellie is brutally killing the fuck out of people again. Jesus Howard Christ, that looks painful. So, the apocalypse is misery and death again, fine.
Look, I'm not against the idea of violence in games. I've killed far too many digital people in brutal ways to suddenly turn into Relena Peacecraft here. But at the Bethesda Conference I remember thinking how cool the idea of Fallout 76 was. It could be a huge multiplayer game where you and friends come together to brave the nuclear wilderness and rebuild America. (Hopefully without the racism.) Then Todd Howard gleefully points out how you can nuke your friends for lulz and I realized Fallout 76 had no potential. It was just a big stupid playground of violence.
I'm not saying The Last of Us II also has no point, it isn't utter idiocy like The Division 2 for example. Ubisoft was proud to say that The Division 2 had no meaning and had nothing to say. That's why I'll shit on that game this entire post, because it shows how cowardly and what a total waste it is. The Last of Us Part II has actual ambitions. But I've done unrelenting misery already. That was The Last Of Us 1. Do you have anything else to say, Naughty Dog? I need something else out of this sequel. Still, I'm buying this game Day 1, no doubt. Games like this reach a higher standard of prestige gaming, which also means I also have to criticize it like a true human drama. So I'm harsh, but only harsh because I love.
More lesbians, less murder, pls.
Death Stranding
Death Stranding is starting to make too much sense. Norman Reedus wanders around a barren wilderness carrying a baby while hiding from invisible monsters with umbilical cords and fall into black goo that rapidly ages him. That pile of batshit ideas is making sense to me now. Also a baby is inside his throat and moons the camera. This is all truly wackadoo stuff and it is amazing that Hideo Kojima got a major publisher to pay for his fever dreams to become reality. But slowly we're seeing the rules here. I have a vague sense who Norman Reedus is and what the baby means and what the black goo does.
Death Stranding is looking like a real game now. That's great because this could be a fascinating title. However, one part of me wants Death Stranding to never come out. I would like for this whole thing to really be a massive joke or postmodern experiment. Every E3 Kojima would show a new trailer and each one would make less sense than the last. Then you'd discover there is no game, or the game was on us. Kojima blew a fortune of Sony's money to hang out with movie stars and create experimental short films in the guise of trailers. But more than a joke, it would be legitimate genius.
Death Stranding could be a never-ending. It's a mystery with no answer. Metal Gear Solid V was more fun as crazy trailers with metal horns, floating kids in gas masks, and giant fire whales. The actual Metal Gear Solid V was really good but ultimately just a game. Wanting something is better than having something. I want Death Stranding to be incarnate form of that desire to be hyped every year. The trailers are only for trailers. Death Stranding needs to be hype for hype's own sake. You know how The Division 2 has no point, and I complained earlier? I'm taking it back. I like Death Stranding better when it has no point.
Or actually make a game, Kojima, that's fine too.
Metro: Exodus
Speaking of needing to eat complaints from earlier. You know how I complained that The Last of Us 2 was too violent and depressing? Yeah, I'm full of shit. Metro: Exodus looks cool. There's a whole rich tradition of demoralizing post-Soviet gaming going back to S.T.A.L.K.E.R. which I am completely ignorant of. The Metro games are set in a universe where the world has ended (again) and people survive the miserable Slavic wastelands inside subway stations. Metro: Exodus seems to be set more on the surface, featuring bands of angry Russians and ruins in marshlands. Then there's mutants, Nazis, and crazy religious cults. It's a grimy awful world where even the air is toxic.
I need to read the books this is based on. And see Tarkovsky's Stalker at some point. Metro: Exodus is probably as close as I'll get to an Annihilation game, so bravo for that.
Pokemon Let's Go Pikachu! and Let's Go Eevee!
I don't know where I am with Pokemon right now. Ever since Pokemon X and Y, I'll be honest, this series hasn't been all that interesting to me. And I don't think adding Pokemon Go connectivity is really fixing the problem either. Having an Eevee live on your head, being able to give Eevee a hat, and riding an Onix around is getting closer to what I want, however. That's all adorable. Maybe going back to Kanto, reuniting with Squirtle and all the other original 151 is a good clean restart to this series. Plus the new Switch graphics look nice.
...Wait, I'm being told you can't evolve your Eevee. That's so stupid! What?? Who even thinks of such idiotic things? Eevee's whole existence is to evolve. It's in the name! We say Eevee-lution not Eevee-not-lution! Goddamn it, you ruined it all. If the people who made this game can have ideas that wrong, I don't want to see what other bad ideas they have. Ideas that bad might be infectious.
I pass on this. I'll wait for the 2019 Generation 8 games.
Super Smash Bros: Ultimate
Nintendo's presentation on this one game lasted as long as Square Enix's entire terrible conference. The selling point is clear: it's Smash, again, and every character is in it. So if you're some kind of freak and your deviant mind missed Pichu from Melee, Pichu is back. Enjoy your worse Pikachu, weirdo.
Also Ridley is in it. A lot of memes died at E3 2018. "Put Skyrim in everything" died at Bethesda, so did this meme. RIP "Ridley is too big". 2006 - 2018.
I'm going to make a weird left turn here and say that I'm actually not that hyped this time. Smash 4 was already everything I could want out of a Super Smash Bros game. This is a series that I enjoy, don't get me wrong. But I feel like I've been playing this same game with minor tweeks since Melee now. Smash 4 got the formula almost exactly right for me. It was a ton of fun. Then I only played it for two months and put it away forever. Like Overwatch, I've done everything in Super Smash Bros that I've ever wanted to do. So I might be done playing it. Pokemon has the same problem.
Nintendo spent a half hour going over very minor changes. Ultimate is more a half-step sequel than a true Smash 5. Which makes me wonder if this series has no more mountains left to conquer. This strategy of "dig up the past" makes Ultimate feel like a museum piece. It's nostalgia for the fans and not much else. The fact I can call a brand new flagship game "nostalgia" shows the problem here. Maybe someday Nintendo will pull a Breath of the Wild with Smash Bros and revolutionize the game to the core. But that isn't what's coming out in December.
Metal Wolf Chaos
This is what Make America Great Again really means, Trump, you bitch. Hype!
Command and Conquer: Mobile Bullshit
This is one of the privileges of being a nobody: I don't have to give this a fair shake. If I were working at a real outlet and had a big audience, I would have to consider both sides of this thing. "There is an argument for this product for people who want a simple RTS on mobile and for possibly reviving this brand." That's what I'd say if I had any kind of responsibility to represent a site and think deeper for an audience. I'd also probably have to consider that The Division 2 isn't a festering pile of total crap to the core. But I don't have to represent anything, I'm just me, so I'll make the truest statement anybody can about Command and Conquer: Rivals:
FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK THIS SO HARD. KANE LIVES IN DEATH.
Final Fantasy VII Remake
Oh wait, this wasn't at E3, was it? Another year of nothing. Why am I even surprised? "Off course" this whole project would be a massive disappointment for years and years.
Actually, screw the Final Fantasy VII Remake. I can't do another Versus XIII. I'm done. Square Enix, just don't make this game. Cancel the fucking remake and save us all the stress. If you need to blow a decade on a dream project, at least blow it on a new Chrono Trigger. This game is humiliating. I'm ashamed to have ever been hyped for this.
Cancel it. Fail at something else.
Tunic
I think I was too negative with those last few games. I want end on something that makes me happy. And really nothing makes me happier than Tunic. Technically Tunic didn't show much that was new, but I don't care. I love this game. I love it to death.
Tunic is impossibly precious. This has all the brutal Zelda beats of Hyper Light Drifter, but it innovates by being unfairly cute. I want to steal the fox out of the game and mother him. I'll be the mama for foxboi that Kratos couldn't be for BOY. We'll go on adventures together, it will be wonderful. Things will probably turn out darker than the cutesy art style implies, yet that's just Indie Games. I'll protect foxboi though.
Believe it or not but Tunic is actually my most-anticipated game from E3 2018. GAME OF THE SHOW. Congrats.
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* I'm exaggerating. Batman v Superman's place is still secure as Worst Movie of the 2010s, don't worry. Nothing is topping that one.
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