aceattorney at E3
- Thread starter aceattorney
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Today I played: Batman, Rainbow Six, Alien using Oculus. All outstanding. Details and more booth walkthroughs later.
Batman: Arkham Knight
It looks amazing. Reflections, the rain, and the lighting all make this game look definitively next-gen. Gotham has never looked darker, or grittier. The city is also sort of transformed into a battlefield, occupied by enemy tanks and filled with bad dudes.
Batman has upgraded his suit to make him move faster, and fly/glide a bit better. His cape, by the way, looks fantastic. It looks rubberized and flutters in the wind like a hang glider. But back to his suit. Batman has a new "fear takedown" that puts the game in slow-motion, and allows him to execute 1-hit takedowns of multiple enemies in quick succession. Fear takedowns are highly stylized and make him look like the trained ninja that he is.
A huge new gameplay element is the inclusion of the Batmobile. I think this might be the weak link in Arkham Knight. Yes, the Batmobile can be awesome in driving around to chase down enemies on the run, and it can even assist Batman in a fistfight during some sequences. However, in tank mode, when you're going up against an entire tank squadron, the game looks disconcertingly similar to recent Transformers games. Sure the Transformers games were cool because you're playing as Transformers. But the Batmobile isn't a Transformer.
Rainbow Six: Siege (Best shooter of E3)
As an old-school PC Rainbow Six veteran, I've longed for the days of planning tactics and strategies for indoor, close quarter combat scenarios. Siege does a pretty good job at bringing that strategy to the new gen of gaming. As a member of an assault team, you and your team can plan your strategy of infiltration through the use of small, user-controlled drones. The drones are like radio-controlled cars, and can be shot and destroyed by the enemy, so you have to observe carefully while you have the chance.
Meanwhile, the defending team must set up their defenses. The three classes of characters come with different sets of weapons and kits. For example, one class can lay down barbed wire, which make loud noises when an enemy tries to walk through them. Another class can set up barriers, which can be turned into swiss cheese with a gun, but doing so will make a lot of noise.
Once the the time-based planning stage expires, there are a few brief moments of tension. The defenders are just waiting to see how and where the invaders will attack from, and the attackers are wondering what booby traps and ambushes await them. It's unnerving.
After the first shots are fired, all hell can break loose. Walls/ceilings/floors are destructible, and kills happen swiftly. Obviously, teamwork is incredibly critical to winning.
As far as the visuals, the game looks great, but I think we'll see additional texture boosts before the game is released next year.
Oculus VR (Best overall experience of E3)
My first time trying Oculus was last year, using an older dev kit. It was amazing then, even with the literally blocky graphics. This year, Oculus had a huge booth at E3, with numerous demo stations. There were a variety of demos, including a space turret game, a platformer, a unique bullet-dodging, time-freezing game, and Alien: Isolation. I got to try the bullet-dodging game, and Alien: Isolation.
The visuals aren't quite as sharp as a nice HDTV, but they are much improved since I tried Oculus last year. And besides that, the resolution doesn't really matter since it's still incredibly immersive.
Alien: Isolation is a scary ass game as it is. Playing with Oculus allowed me to experience an entirely new level of fear. I walked around carefully, swinging my head around at every odd sound in the close-quarters. As I pulled up my motion-tracker, I turned my head to look over at it. THERE WAS A BLIP. I looked sharply up and saw a dark figure ahead pass through the beam of my flashlight. I was frozen in fear, but I backpedaled...right into a corner. In a second, the alien was on top of me, and again, I screamed in public whilst playing this game.
Assassin's Creed: Unity (Most beautiful game of E3)
It uses a brand new graphics engine, and it shows. You've seen the trailer, and the actual gameplay looks just like it. The demo was led by a developer, and he said it was running on a PC with Xbox One specs. The dynamic range, the lighting, the textures, the color palette, the vast numbers of NPCs on screen, and even the costumes look far better than Black Flag. You might as well think of it as a reboot of the franchise.
I'm a huge fan of the series, and Ubisoft managed to make it even greater, and not just with graphical improvements. You can parkour even more, with wallrunning, and quick, free-climbing down (previously you could only free-climb up). About 25% of the buildings can be entered into (not just passing through them). NPCs are alive and do crazy stuff, like looting buildings, gawking at murdered folks (which lead you to side missions to solve murders), and they riot against the government and each other. It's nuts how active this world is.
Combat is supposedly improved, and even tougher than before.
Oh and there's a dedicated button for stealth! You can finally crouch! You also automatically take cover behind objects when in stealth mode.
There are a lot of little graphical nuances that add up to a gorgeous game.
It looks amazing. Reflections, the rain, and the lighting all make this game look definitively next-gen. Gotham has never looked darker, or grittier. The city is also sort of transformed into a battlefield, occupied by enemy tanks and filled with bad dudes.
Batman has upgraded his suit to make him move faster, and fly/glide a bit better. His cape, by the way, looks fantastic. It looks rubberized and flutters in the wind like a hang glider. But back to his suit. Batman has a new "fear takedown" that puts the game in slow-motion, and allows him to execute 1-hit takedowns of multiple enemies in quick succession. Fear takedowns are highly stylized and make him look like the trained ninja that he is.
A huge new gameplay element is the inclusion of the Batmobile. I think this might be the weak link in Arkham Knight. Yes, the Batmobile can be awesome in driving around to chase down enemies on the run, and it can even assist Batman in a fistfight during some sequences. However, in tank mode, when you're going up against an entire tank squadron, the game looks disconcertingly similar to recent Transformers games. Sure the Transformers games were cool because you're playing as Transformers. But the Batmobile isn't a Transformer.
Rainbow Six: Siege (Best shooter of E3)
As an old-school PC Rainbow Six veteran, I've longed for the days of planning tactics and strategies for indoor, close quarter combat scenarios. Siege does a pretty good job at bringing that strategy to the new gen of gaming. As a member of an assault team, you and your team can plan your strategy of infiltration through the use of small, user-controlled drones. The drones are like radio-controlled cars, and can be shot and destroyed by the enemy, so you have to observe carefully while you have the chance.
Meanwhile, the defending team must set up their defenses. The three classes of characters come with different sets of weapons and kits. For example, one class can lay down barbed wire, which make loud noises when an enemy tries to walk through them. Another class can set up barriers, which can be turned into swiss cheese with a gun, but doing so will make a lot of noise.
Once the the time-based planning stage expires, there are a few brief moments of tension. The defenders are just waiting to see how and where the invaders will attack from, and the attackers are wondering what booby traps and ambushes await them. It's unnerving.
After the first shots are fired, all hell can break loose. Walls/ceilings/floors are destructible, and kills happen swiftly. Obviously, teamwork is incredibly critical to winning.
As far as the visuals, the game looks great, but I think we'll see additional texture boosts before the game is released next year.
Oculus VR (Best overall experience of E3)
My first time trying Oculus was last year, using an older dev kit. It was amazing then, even with the literally blocky graphics. This year, Oculus had a huge booth at E3, with numerous demo stations. There were a variety of demos, including a space turret game, a platformer, a unique bullet-dodging, time-freezing game, and Alien: Isolation. I got to try the bullet-dodging game, and Alien: Isolation.
The visuals aren't quite as sharp as a nice HDTV, but they are much improved since I tried Oculus last year. And besides that, the resolution doesn't really matter since it's still incredibly immersive.
Alien: Isolation is a scary ass game as it is. Playing with Oculus allowed me to experience an entirely new level of fear. I walked around carefully, swinging my head around at every odd sound in the close-quarters. As I pulled up my motion-tracker, I turned my head to look over at it. THERE WAS A BLIP. I looked sharply up and saw a dark figure ahead pass through the beam of my flashlight. I was frozen in fear, but I backpedaled...right into a corner. In a second, the alien was on top of me, and again, I screamed in public whilst playing this game.
Assassin's Creed: Unity (Most beautiful game of E3)
It uses a brand new graphics engine, and it shows. You've seen the trailer, and the actual gameplay looks just like it. The demo was led by a developer, and he said it was running on a PC with Xbox One specs. The dynamic range, the lighting, the textures, the color palette, the vast numbers of NPCs on screen, and even the costumes look far better than Black Flag. You might as well think of it as a reboot of the franchise.
I'm a huge fan of the series, and Ubisoft managed to make it even greater, and not just with graphical improvements. You can parkour even more, with wallrunning, and quick, free-climbing down (previously you could only free-climb up). About 25% of the buildings can be entered into (not just passing through them). NPCs are alive and do crazy stuff, like looting buildings, gawking at murdered folks (which lead you to side missions to solve murders), and they riot against the government and each other. It's nuts how active this world is.
Combat is supposedly improved, and even tougher than before.
Oh and there's a dedicated button for stealth! You can finally crouch! You also automatically take cover behind objects when in stealth mode.
There are a lot of little graphical nuances that add up to a gorgeous game.
