E3 2016 - Nintendo

Nintendo continues to not really conform to the standard E3 conference format with their Nintendo Direct streamed segments with interviews and gameplay demos in Treehouses. Even more unconventionally they're dedicating their entire presence at E3 to a single brand new game. The Legend Of Zelda: Breath In The Wind. This next installment of the popular Legend Of Zelda series aims to break everything that you're used to and bring a completely new kind of Zelda game to the masses.

An introductory gameplay demo with director Eiji Aonuma alongside Bill Trinen and some unimportant Treehouse goons shows that the huge new game world can be approached a variety of different ways and really exposes itself immediately to you like an old man at a bus stop, valuing personal freedom above all else.

A lot of people are already calling this "The Dark Souls of Zelda games" because of the exchangeable armour and clothing, different weapons with their own durability and a ramped up difficulty that should weed out all the filthy casual pissbabies who got on board during Nintendo's ultimately ill-fated motion controls Wii-phase.

Personally I found the most shocking feature to be the voice acting throughout the game. Link will now comment on the scenery and enemies around him and of course, finally interact with characters in the fully voiced cutscenes. The role of Link is played by some guy called Troy Baker but Bill Trinen promises several other far bigger names appearing in famous roles later on in the game.

If you check Sir Patrick Stewart's IMDB page he's currently listed in a role detailed only as "Sacrificial Bearded Butterfly God". Whilst rumours circulate that Liam Neeson, Michael Cera and Megan Fox are also involved likely as Ganon, Tingle and Zelda respectively.

The first gameplay demo comes to a close when Link suffers a seemingly fatal neck wound from a mysterious figure hiding in the shadows but whose silhouette will look eerily familiar to anyone who's played Sonic Adventure 2 Battle. Shigeru Miyamoto leads the next gameplay demo as his translators relay his commentary in both English and Hylian. This would have been a nice little gimmick for the walkthrough had the subtitles not overlapped with the new Rage meter at the bottom of the screen, completely obscuring our view.

In Shiggy's part of the show we see a new enemy type called the "Trident Monkey." who can skewer and spear Link's armour effectively rendering it useless but annoyingly still counting towards your total equip burden. If Link is unarmoured the trident can also rip and ruin his clothing leaving him completely naked. Apparently the Moblins won't even attack you in this state but will instead point and laugh at your pasty emasculated body and genitals. Miyamoto laughs. "This feature comes from my memories of being a boy-scout but only with the power of the Wii U, can I finally see it realised."

To finish. Bill Trinen segues into an amusing skit where Reggie Fils-Aime runs through the Nintendo offices in a Wario costume flinging custard pies at everyone. Eventually Reggie is caught and receives a disciplinary for such a tasteless prank. He is then soaked in gungey white "Mario Mushroom Juice" as punishment.

A still dripping Reggie thanks the online viewers for tuning in and all the important staff who actually matter before a final trailer for Breath In The Wind plays and the conference comes to a close. Overall I think a really disappointing conference for Nintendo. Despite putting all their money into one game and only showing that, this new Legend Of Zelda looks like a great waste of time and I think my only seething hatred was not being able to see the "squad-based online multiplayer" component of the game.

E3 2016 - Ubisoft

If you thought that maybe E3 conferences were getting more sane and sensible over the years, you would be spectacularly wrong. Ubisoft is picking up the slack and catapulting it into orbit against everyone's wishes.

I don't think there are adequate human words to describe what transpires at the opening of this conference. I don't think I will ever be able to forget what I have seen and was woefully unprepared for upon clicking play. The descriptors buzzing around my head range from hallucinogenic, horrifying, unnecessary to CBeebies and downright distasteful.

It is one thing to butcher the Queen classic "Don't Stop Me Now" it is quite another to do it in Giraffe and Lion costumes with butterfly guitars and unsynchronised backing dancers with psychopathic theatre grins.

It's unfair to compare this to an acid trip because they sometimes result in the mercy of a coma.

Were it just this, I might have moved on. Were the circus clowns all still not on stage I might have dismissed it, but amidst this cheese-stuffed twee, this pompous literal song and dance, Aisha Tyler steps out and tries to express sympathies on behalf of Ubisoft for the victims of the Orlando shootings...

Sony's Shawn Layden mentioned this at the start of their conference too but it was respectfully done because there wasn't a fucking lollipop girl and barbershop quartets doing shit cartwheels five seconds before. Both Shawn Layden and Aisha Tyler point out the unsmooth incongruity in mentioning something so serious and terrible and then having to talk about and celebrate the comparatively trivial world of video games.

The difference however is that Sony, had to move on to talking about video games, it's E3 and their press conference. Ubisoft did not have to start their show with that baffling musical number completely unrelated to video games. Sure it's their 30th birthday and a Just Dance hashtag appears but that performance was not the game and even if it were you could have picked something better to open with. If you wanted to focus that much on the 30th birthday celebrations, just don't mention Orlando. Everyone's wearing the badges anyway, that's all Bethesda and Microsoft did, you could have just thought for more than a second about how it would look and avoided...that.

So finally moving on to the now seemingly foreign object of video games and a CG trailer for Ghost Recon: Wildlands plays where I feel myself being dragged back into politics as the Trumptastic new title sees a bunch of American military fighting a corrupt dictatorship in Mexico.

After this trailer the lead designer starts a pretentious talk about Coca leaves whilst irritating banners of "live" tweets from spectators pop up on screen. I already don't like this guy but finishing his talk with "let's go get that intel" in a tone like Barney the fucking dinosaur talking to a bunch of children cements his name on the shithead-list.

If Barney was somehow in charge of a military operation of course...

A gameplay demo for Wildlands starts and the player immediately shoots two guards in the head as his character's dialogue says "let's try to keep it stealthy." before he switches to an AK47 and blasts another guy standing out in the open.

Our generic American grunt character guns down some more guards before diddling on a laptop to "get that intel." Him and his partner need to proceed to "The Stewmaker's" hideout which is quite a distance away. Player man asks "do you have a car?" to which his partner responds "no, something better." as though this is supposed to be an impressive reveal when his small helicopter lands and the force from the roters doesn't even affect the nearby trees.

A third soldier joins the squad and I suddenly realise that all the characters have the exact same voice with the slight exception to the fourth member, who's a black guy. Despite boasting 4 player co-op throughout the entire campaign it's rather meaningless in this demo as we're not shown the players or any splitscreen view to have any idea how many are actual people  Sony's set up showing the actual players in small video windows at the side was more insightful in this regard.

The soldiers find their target, shoot more dudes, a car chase ensues and they escape by helicopter with the characters talking constantly throughout it. The only impressive feature is the amount of context-specific dialogue they seem to have recorded. You can join the wall builders on March 7th 2017.

There's hundreds of games this screenshot could be from.

Another unsettling trailer talks about the rise of crime in the U.S and plays clips from real-life incidents. It turns out this is a mock-trailer for the next South Park game so I guess it doesn't matter, since rampant insensitivity is kind of their thing.

Jason Schrodinger steps out and simultaneously doesn't, followed by ageing Trey Parker and Matt Stone to talk about South Park: The Fractured But Whole. They all sit down on a big sofa to discuss it like old friendly chummy chums.

In the new game the characters are no longer satirising western RPG's and have moved onto Superhero's and Marvel's movies in particular. We see some cutscenes and gameplay but as with Stick Of Truth, you can't really praise the graphics or the writing except in relation to its authenticity to the show. It looks like the show and seems pretty funny like the show so that's all good I guess.

Next up the creative director of The Division appears with Aisha to talk about the new Underground expansion. "We love this world, you love this world and we're going to keep on making it better for you" Well that's pretty presumptuous of you for a start and also you forgot to add "for a price" to the end of that sentence.

You can get free Splinter Cell, Goose Raccoon and Rainbow Six alternate costumes if you're part of "Ubisoft Club" so tough luck there everyone. They then announce another expansion before the first one is even out. After Underground, a snowy one called Survival is coming but no one knows any difference besides the snow because all we're shown is another CG trailer.

A VR game due in autumn called Eagle Flight is demoed. Where you surprisingly enough play as Eagles who can somehow shoot something at each other, presumably either their shit or giant gobs of spit. The teams play a capture the flag match over Paris where the flag is a rabbit.

The game looks fun in a very simplistic Wii Sports kind of way up until the cameras cut back to the players all swivelling their heads around in their Oculus headsets looking like a row of blindfolded hostages trying to break their own necks.

Next comes the smuggest guy of this E3 (which is saying something) to introduce a Star Trek VR game that they even roped some cast members from prior series (and one from the upcoming movie of course) into playing for a trailer. Most of the trailer is showing the players looking dumb in their headsets sitting on chairs because the title itself looks like a PS2 game.

Star Trek: Bridge Crew comes out in Autumn this year. They all claim it's so much fun but the trailer really isn't convincing. Ubisoft brings Levar Burton back out from the trailer to hype up the game more, talking about teamwork and immersion but I'm honestly not feeling it. 

Instead of sitting in a chair and pressing buttons whilst looking at the interior of a spaceship on your TV, Star Trek VR allows you to sit in a chair and press buttons whilst looking at the interior of a spaceship on some goggles strapped to your face.

Make it so...much better than this please.

A cinematic trailer shows story details of For Honor. The Medieval combat game that combines warriors from Europe, Scandinavia and Asia. It seems in the plot, the world is post-apocalyptic and suffered some natural disaster which halted technology and diminished vital resources, bringing about the scenario where Vikings, Knights and Samurai are all fighting each other.

On top of this there seems to be a supernatural element as a Goddess of War called Apollyon orchestrates the conflict from behind the scenes. Initial historical Googles only show an angel from the New Testament Book of Revelation by that name, who commanded an army of locusts. That doesn't seem to fit what we see here so perhaps it's just the developer's own creation.

Unless we're talking metaphors for expendable human life in war and arty farty hohohohoh.

That's way more story than I expected for this game but the surprise is a pleasant one. For Honor's frightening creative director then steps straight out of the game world and onto the stage to give cheesy patronising Braveheart speeches (again) for 90% of everything he says. He actually drops out of this into normal talk briefly so it's clear he's not physically unable and is actually from our current era in time but he's just doing it as poor choice of...presentation I guess.

A live gameplay demo begins for the Viking's campaign in the single player which sounds like Jason Vandenberghe himself did the voiceover just emphasising how unnecessary his dramatic readings are in the actual conference.

Weirdly, there seems to be a very different crowd at this conference to the dickweeds from all the prior shows who would have heckled and screamed their own stupidity aplenty by now in the frequent awkward silences throughout Ubisoft's show.

As for the gameplay itself the combat looks varied, polished, visceral and fun. With combos, sneak attacks, running tackles, throws, drop attacks and unique environmental kills all amongst impressively realised historical settings like a Japanese fortress seen in this demo. Weirdly For Honor releases on Valentine's day 2017 so you can at least satisfy your murder boner if nothing else...

From Geordi La Forge to Geordie La Forced, a northern chap announces a sequel to indie game Grow Home called Grow Up and I can't help wishing he'd take his own advice instead of talking like the worst condescending cringey advertisement. 

Things had settled down into merely annoying for a while there until two bearded chubby men in pink tracksuits strut through the room and reveal a combination of Trials and Blood Dragon inventively called Trials Of The Blood Dragon.

More like Trials of My Fucking Sanity...

Maybe I'm just in a bad mood at this point but the 80's goof and nostalgic charm Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon had, seems to be soured by thoughtless overuse in this new game or at least its tryhard action figure-based trailer.

Going from the least professional thing this conference to the most, film producer Frank Marshall arrives on stage to talk about the Assassin's Creed movie with Aisha. Frank claims it will be faithful to the games and then shows some "never beseen before footage" that you've probably already seen because it's probably everywhere by now so even mentioning it was rather pointless. Let's pray the Assassin's Creed movie does the impossible of becoming a good video game to film adaptation for once and while we're at it, world peace, cures for cancer and chocolate sex for everyone.

An edited gameplay demo for Watchdogs 2 introduces our main character and his allies on a mission to steal information from a corrupt politician or businessman or something. Breaking into his house involves typical behind cover stealth gameplay with a few neat hacking capabilities like remote controlled spy drones and hacking a parked car to start and crash through the building.

That promising lukewarm start is soaked back to cold indifference when the protagonist pulls a gun and starts shooting guys and melee attacking guards twice his age and size, cementing fears that the developers haven't learnt from the first game. Is it so hard to imagine that people might want creative hacking ways of dealing with guards rather than the same cover-shooting mechanics we see in every other everything these days?

I mean that's just straight up an assault rifle. Do you really need bloody assault rifles in your hacking game?

As for the plot and characters, it feels like it's trying too hard to be modern and cool in places but other goofy parts I have to admit to liking, such as your masked ally who uses electronic keyboard symbols where his eyes would be. Maybe the guns are more optional than they seem but right now I'm mainly sceptical of and concerned for Watchdogs 2.

Following this conference's trend for jarring contrasts two old identically dressed businessmen take turns on stage to talk about this supposedly cool, youthful "fuck the system" streetwise game series. Their business drivel ranges from meaningless "we're excited about a Watchdogs movie" to trivial "PS4 owners get Watchdogs 2 DLC a month earlier than anyone else."

That first old man also runs Ubisoft and Yves Guillmot returns on stage to slowly announce a brand new IP in "a new genre" which as usual is a complete lie. "Steep" is an open world sports racing game located in The Alps because the studio making it is situated at the base of the alps and creativity is now just looking out your window and saying "fuck it, do that."

You can snowboard, ski, paraglide or wingsuit down the mountains in solo or multiplayer as well as rewatch replays, wear goofy costumes and share all that stuff with friends...and that's kind of it really. Everything will really depend on how functional and fun the mechanics are because that's basically all there is to the game.

Looks nice though.

An odd finale to the conference but at this point I'm just glad the two hour long shitshow is finally over. Excluding the opening, as hard as that is to do, Ubisoft's conference had too many CG trailers, mostly mediocre gameplay demos and an infuriating, patronising, cringeworthy attitude throughout that made me want to grit my teeth into dust and then grind my gums together until they wore down to the fucking bone.

Aside from Aisha herself, none of the speakers had any rapport with the audience or any clue how to not be insufferable babblebollocks on stage. For Honor was the only title to actually impress me, whilst a couple of other games felt mainly lacking or misguided and the rest of the conference was quite frankly dreck.

E3 2016 - Sony

Already starting with more of a spectacle, a grand orchestra lead by its composer and part-time Dracula stand-in plays from the soundtrack of what we later learn is the new God Of War theme, before leading straight into a live gameplay demo of said game.

I've not played the prior games but the writing here seems exceptionally well thought out with some memorable dialogue lines in this first showing alone. Kratos is still an arsehole but they're taking that personality and going somewhere with it. We see him try to teach his son to hunt and survive in the wilderness. What wilderness this is exactly or where I don't know. I don't know what happened between this and the last game but a significant change has occurred in the game's setting and tone, right down to the core gameplay.

Voiced by Hugh Jacksman.

Kratos and his son hunt a deer through the icy woods with scenery more reminiscent of Skyrim than God Of War whilst the combat seems slower, heavier and more tactical, perhaps taking cues from the Dark Souls series.

It's unclear at points the distinction between gameplay and cutscene, especially when QTE's are surprisingly absent from a game series that used to be full of them. Naturally, greater enemies than deer appear and Kratos must step in to protect his son but what I'm really interested in is the story of this new entry and to see the hard-arsed Kratos mellow slightly in teaching a young apprentice.

Who, as child actors go, is not insufferable either.

After Microsoft's debacle of zoomed out cameras showing empty stages and motionless audiences in the dark it's relieving to have the footage that mainly focuses on the game putting a few smaller video boxes to the side just to prove there's actually someone playing the game in the live demos and to give screen time to the orchestra during others. It's not perfect but it's an improvement.

The God Of War choir starts up again to give an unsettling entrance theme for my favourite slimy businessman Shawn Layden, who I was hoping would come out in rags this year following his gradual mental descent over the years. Alas he is suited but still a bit twitchy and beardy, so there's still hope for my own personal investment in a dark spiral of corporate self-destruction..

Unfortunately rather than let it speak for itself Shawn has to bolster Sony's ego with the line "what a way to start the show." But it is coupled mostly with thanks to the orchestra and fans et cetera rather than self-congratulatory smugness.

Shawn continues to chat rhetoric about the upcoming show and their admittedly very impressive theatre setting. Perhaps I've been swayed by the better opening to the conference or perhaps Shawn is simply a better speaker than Phil Spencer but this is nowhere near as grating as Microsoft's conference.

A dramatic CG trailer plays for a post-apocalyptic game called Days Gone, starring a dishevelled and disillusioned biker. I like to imagine the developers are trying to save this type of protagonist from only being known in Ride To Hell: Retribution.

As long as there's less clothed sex scenes and 8 second music loops, It should do fine...

Pleasingly, this flows straight into another trailer for the long awaited spiritual successor to Shadow Of The Collosus, The Last Guardian. The trailer is mostly story beats and cutscenes but there's some gameplay shown and perhaps more importantly a release date of October 25th 2016 for which the audience uproariously howls for.

Moving, again immediately into a gameplay demo for Horizon Zero Dawn, winner of the most redundant title award, we see the heroine attempt to attack some of the corrupted robot wildlife and salvage their valuable parts.

The setting is still incredibly interesting, as a post-post-apocalypse world where nature has retaken the planet and mechanical remnants of an old world still wander lost like wild animals. The plot seems to hint at finding increasingly ancient robots and likely discovering what exactly befell the world and the gameplay seems solid, with some fun features like a scanner that determines an enemies' exact weakness and the cable-tethering arrows used to trap and restrain targets.

Still hard to believe this is from the people behind Killzone.

Next up comes an intriguing new title featuring an android negotiator which promises a myriad of ways to fail or semi-fail and probably one very difficult way to actually resolve the hostage situation. Oh wait, it's David Cage's new thing? Then I meant it looks like shit and will be a horrible waste of time.

In reluctant honesty though, the premise looks decent despite its creator and hopefully this will break the trend from Cage's other floundering misfires. Making half the characters robots is actually the smartest move you could make for someone who can't write humans. You can order Detroit to Become Human sometime in 2017.

Due to the cameras not being on the bloody screen again, I miss the introductory text to our next title and the video mixer only catches up in time for me to see the word Kitchen. I'll have to try and guess from that alone then.

Cooking Mama's really ramping up the difficulty.

It ultimately turns out to be Resident Evil 7 but by God you wouldn't know it from the footage. The game is now in first person and from what little we see, a guy explores a derelict and disgusting house after receiving a phone call that someone is coming to kill him.

The story remains teasingly unclear and to break format slightly for a moment, I later saw some interviews with the creators that confirmed this is still canon and set in the Resident Evil universe, so it's definitely not a reboot. It is however, an entirely new character we're playing as, their justification for which was that Chris, Jill, Leon et cetera had become almost like superheroes and far too capable to really feel vulnerable playing as them.

I completely agree with this and in trying to bring back the horror emphasis to Resident Evil whilst not abandoning its other features, this huge new direction makes a lot of sense for what they're trying to achieve, even if it is now unrecognisable amongst the hundreds of first person horror games in creepy houses.

After three conferences now and perhaps because of Sony's sophisticated venue I'd foolishly hoped the audience would be better behaved than feral baboons but this tension building, quiet horror game trailer was pretty much ruined by shiteating dickless heckler twats shouting out like the guy in secondary school always trying to be funny.

I'll defend gamers against a lot of unfair criticism but there's no denying at least the people at this year's E3, include some truly pathetic immature wankholes who I wish had been kicked out for not knowing how to shut the fuck up and not ruin an event for everyone else. Sorry, personal soapbox rant there...Moving on...

Five new trailers in a row is an excellent flow for the conference and Shawn returns briefly to reconfirm RE7's release date of January 24th 2017 and reveal it will be completely compatible with VR (probably only due to the first person perspective).

Naturally after this he announces that Playstation VR (apparently no longer called Morpheus) will release October 13th 2016 at the price of $399 USD, the same price as Microsoft's Project Scorpio with a 2TB hard drive, for reference. He promises 50 compatible games, old and new by the end of the year and goes on to premier an exclusive new game built specifically for PSVR.

Farpoint is a Sci-Fi FPS that appears to be about discovering hostile life on an alien planet. It will probably only become more difficult to distinguish gameplay from cutscene or CG with VR now but I believe this was a purely cinematic trailer.

Next up comes a natural addition to the VR roster with Star Wars Battlefront: X-Wing VR Mission. First person piloting in the ever-popular Star Wars space battles that the developers ingeniously left out of the main game.

There's even a new Rocksteady developed Batman Arkham VR game, coming October 2016 but with no further details than a cryptic trailer voiced by Mark Hamill's Joker talking about masks. I can't really see how this one will work to be honest but I hope you can at any point just take the headset off and that translates as removing the cowl mid-conversation with Commissioner Gordon.

Stepping out of VR now, Final Fantasy 15 shows a slightly more impressive trailer than the lacklustre gameplay demo at Microsoft's conference, but then stumbling back into VR we're introduced to Final Fantasy XV VR Experience which I really hope is a working title. Now you can play the game in first person armed only with a piddly little pistol to doot at monsters from a distance which I think is really the underlying pull that everyone comes to the Final Fantasy games for.

While I'm willing to bet Final Fantasy Dance Dance Revolution would be better received, the developers themselves have enough faith to even show one of your boyband troupe wearing the dumb VR headset and pissing around with it on like it's a pair of designer sunglasses.

Beep boop, you're a twat.

Everyone really should be trying to avoid showing these headsets in action because no one has yet solved the problem of how to not look like an extraordinarily hollow-headed toolbox while using VR and it certainly doesn't help sell your game with the opportunity to look like an overenthusiastic, techno-birdwatcher.

It's unclear if this is a mode in the main game or a stand-alone spin off but judging purely on the apparent quality, I would hope it's just the former. Also you can "play as Prompto" whatever that means.

Next up is a fast-paced Sci-Fi military FPS with seamless transitions between fighting in person and piloting spaceships. The amount of detail alone makes it feel very authentic and immersive and the playing with gravity combined with a grappling hook gadget looks like maneuvering in space is both fun and easy. I wonder what this game even is-What?! This is Call Of Duty: Infinite Warfare?

I feel like it isn't being paid the respects it deserves...

Apparently so, which is odd because if the internet is to be believed (which it's not) COD: IW is supposed to be the biggest train wreck since shortly after the invention of the first train. I don't actually have any allegiance to either COD or the Battlefield series and haven't even played most of the games but for the monumental dislikes COD: IW's trailer got and the more understandable outrage at the Modern Warfare Remaster being exclusive to purchasing Infinite Warfare, the actual gameplay of Infinity Ward's latest looks exciting, polished and fun.

Maybe it's just the fanboy minorities who lose their tiny minds over these things but from the display shown at Sony's E3 conference and the buzz surrounding Battlefield 1, both games could be fantastic and offer opposite ends of a similar taste. I haven't gotten round to watching actual gameplay of Battlefield 1 because the overhyped stream wasn't in EA's conference but I've wanted a WW1 game for a long time so hopefully both of these series can nail their respective new directions.

Perhaps unwisely the aforementioned controversially exclusive Modern Warfare Remastered gets a brief trailer after Infinite Warfare's finishes but the crowd at least certainly has no time to reflect on this. The stage's curtain finally lifts to reveal a nostalgic backdrop and the orchestra begins a familiar tune. Shawn even returns with his own shadow being replaced by the famous character's...Not actually sure how they did that.

I'm guessing some kind of occult ritual involving a PS1 and a frightened Marsupial.

Shawn announces that the original Crash Bandicoot, Crash Bandicoot 2 and Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped will all be remastered for the PS4. The audience as you can imagine goes absolutely bed-wettingly bonkers.

Strangely a rather less exciting announcement is the one that gets a trailer. Upcoming wallet-gobbler Skylanders: Imaginators will include Crash Bandicoot as a playable character and I can't decide if he looks objectively too creepy in modern-day graphics or if they've somehow gotten away with it.

But then I guess he's always looked kinda creepy...

Andrew Mouse walks on stage to a very triumphant brass section but his implied importance is rather quashed as some cheeky smartarse in the editing room puts his introductory subtitle name as "Andy House." I dunno, maybe he wanted it like that, perhaps he's trying to seem more hip and relateable for the kids. Just seems odd that it didn't match what was actually said over the speakers. It'd be like introducing Shigeru Miyamoto and his title card said "The Shigster" or "Shiggy Shizzle Me I Am Motormizzle" ...Okay now I feel old.

Speaking of being hip, his next introduction seems to confirm that Hideo Kojima has become the game industry's "Mr Hot Shit" as he gets a deific light-up walkway down the stage and entrance music straight from Hans Zimmer's post-it notes.

Looks a bit rubbish when you screenshot it...

I like Kojima and his crazy ideas as much as the next guy but allow me to risk fatally overdosing on cynicism here. P.T was great but would Kojima be anywhere near as famous right now had he not been so vitriolically fired and erased from Konami? Konami were undoubtedly monstrously shameful bastards about that whole thing but ironically, losing that job may have ended up being the best thing to happen to Kojima's career since Metal Gear Solid 3.

Industry reflections aside, he seems very happy with his reception as he introduces his new game Death Stranding. Immediately obvious as a Kojima production from the William Blake quote and funky soundtrack, we see a floor littered with dead crabs leading up to a naked Norman Reedus handcuffed to a baby whilst handprints from a ghost made of oil touch up everything before Reedus looks up with a crucifix scar on his stomach to see what looks like a dried up sea, destroyed by oil...

...What you expect me to comment on that? I don't know what the fuck he's smoking either but I suppose that's exactly what everyone wants from a Kojima production so welcome back Hideo and hello naked oily crying Norman Reedus...There's a phrase I never expected to say. Not out loud anyway...

What's bigger than Kojima right now? Well Marvel movies are probably one of the few things so the following trailer shows us an as yet untitled Spiderman game with (I think) a few slithers of gameplay amidst the CG and cutscenes. A highlight being, Spidey hopping across tables in an office before bursting out of a glass window hinting at seamless transitions between interior and exterior settings.

Combat appears to attempt what you'd hope. Stringing up bad guys and swinging things in the environment to whack them with. One of these things in the trailer appears to be (or at least the size of) a car, which might be a bit much for random street thugs but I'll give them the benefit of the doubt that Peter Parker hasn't gone full Man Of Steel on us.

Of course the most important thing is the swinging mechanics and I can only hope that Jamie Fristrom, the man behind Spiderman 2's legendary swinging mechanics is on-board or at least that the current team have learnt from his achievements.

Also unclear if this ties into the upcoming "Homecoming" movie. New suit suggests maybe no?

Shawn returns on stage to another dramatic tune, this time sounding rather unholy from the orchestra. If he has to come out again, I swear it's just going to be the Imperial March. He thanks everyone and talks about the heart of video games being gameplay before finishing off the conference with a live demo of the biker's post apocalypse game we saw earlier, Days Gone.

The protagonist searches an abandoned factory for someone called 2-Dog, MacGyvering weapon accessories from old cars but ultimately leaving Mr. Dog to die when a zombie horde becomes aware of them. So yeah it's zombies again and if you're tired of that I doubt this game will be so good as to rekindle your passion but the sheer numbers of the hordes is very impressive, I think even topping Dead Rising and there's hints at other neat features like the floorboards buckling under the weight of an advancing horde.

That guy's not even part of it, he's just trying to scooch past to go down the shops.

Not much else to go on with this title and arguably a bit of a mediocre closer to the show but overall a very strong conference from Sony I feel.The main strength, as it always will and should be, is focusing on the games and cutting out the business bullshit which Playstation did almost as much as they possibly could.

I imagine some people were hoping for gameplay of the Final Fantasy 7 remaster which was a no-show but some genuinely exciting and stunning titles like God Of War and...Call of Duty (I never thought I'd be saying that) make up for it. Fair play Sony, jolly good show.

Now get Shawn hooked on cocaine already so I can fulfill my insane businessman fantasy.

E3 2016 - Microsoft

Microsoft's E3 starts with a trailer showing the new slim Xbox One which is now a little white box like a Nintendo Wii but with the lips of a PS4 and lots of little dots presumably providing venting along the sides. After this a rather dissonant electronic track then introduces Phil Spencer as though he were an end of level boss, especially after he stands on the Xbox vigil-uh, I mean logo, on his centre stage surrounded by some immediately annoying audience members.

The Xbox One S will start at $299 being released in August and that's all the practical information about it we get from this conference.

Moving on, film star and, apparently in his spare time, Gears Of War Co-Creator Clancy Brown steps on stage, also to inexplicably dark and menacing music. He announces "Xbox Play Anywhere" which allows a single purchase of a game to be accessible on both Xbox and Windows 10, with Gears 4 being one of the first compatible titles.

This cross-play functionality extends to the co-op as well and to demonstrate it Captain Hadley brings out Laura Bailey, one of the main voice actresses in the game. That said, we never actually see any split-screen or who's doing what so the co-op interactions are a little dubious.

This might however just be due to the terrible filmed set up that keeps cutting from the screen showing the gameplay to the motionless audience and stage. Bailey's character is supposed to finish off the demo with a powerful threat to a defeated boss but for some reason the audio cuts out at this point.

I guess maybe she said a naughty word and they had to censor it but in that case perhaps censor just the swearing and not almost all the rest of the dialogue as well. It might seem irrelevant to criticise these production values but because of them I didn't see or hear as much of Gears 4 as I should have and this bewildering stupidity in the video mixing plagues the entire conference.

What I did see admittedly looked decent. The short segment seemed to take and expand upon one of the most interesting features of the old games, that being the lethal alien weather that occurs on their planet. Gameplay seemed much the same but with increased environmental destruction and ways to use that against the enemy.

Toned down on the steroids too which is nice.

A brief cutscene follows the demo, revealing an older, beardy Marcus Fenix is in fact part of this game but perhaps relegated to an armchair. A character comeback I never thought would receive such hearty cheers from the audience but I guess some people relate to biceps bigger than your head and a 40 year smoker's voice. Old man gravel pants and the new crew will release on October 11th 2016.

But we're not done with Gears 4 because a special Gears-themed Elite Controller is in existence somewhere according to a not entirely helpful trailer. With claw marks, blood splatter and a mathematically incorrect tally mark you can finally help perpetuate the brainless violent grunt stereotype that Gears Of War often embodies.

This might explain how the Xbox One got its name...

A community manager for Killer Instinct informs us there are now 7 million players of the game (just like Elder Scrolls Online, fancy that) and it is the most played fighting game on Xbox One. Whether that's anything to do with it being exclusive to Xbox One or Street Fighter Five being exclusive to PS4, I couldn't possibly comment...

Following the increasing trend of guest characters from other franchises appearing in fighting games, Killer Instinct's latest memorable face will be none other than the iconic General Raam......You know? The final boss from the first Gears Of War? I think I remember fighting him on a train...You have to shoot him a lot until he dies...

The next trailer shows some beautiful environments of the Australian outback but rather than the long awaited sequel to Ty The Tasmanian Tiger it turns out to just be Forza again. It's just all that car stuff again except it's in Australia so there's also buggys.

Breaking the time honoured tradition of putting a car on the stage with something equally as baffling, a Scottish man walks on stage and says "Welcome to Australia." He sets up a multiplayer live demo with a woman playing on the Xbox One S and some poor bastard called Andy who has to sit in a Forza branded gaming chair isolated on his own stage with just his steering wheel and a computer running Windows 10.

Meanwhile player 3, Terrance clearly won whatever bet they had going and gets a proper chair with a desk.

The demo shows cross platform play in multiplayer and co-op campaign and it all looks very polished as always but I really don't care unless it rates Burnout or higher on the scale of arcade racing to racing sim and Forza appears to linger around the middle, leaning more towards sim.

Still I can't deny, I don't recall seeing Australia as a location explored very much in games even if you're too busy dodging trees to really see it. Forza 3 Horizon is out September 27th this year and the crowd seems pretty keen on it for whatever that's worth.

The increasingly aggravating, probably compulsory "Xbox One and Windows 10 exclusive" message introduces another trailer for Recore. A third person platformer from the developers of Metroid Prime that we saw a cinematic trailer for last year. This year's trailer reveals the gameplay and the different robot allies you can use to assist you in traversing the environment or disposing of enemies amidst the barren desert world.

Not much else to say other than the game looks really good with an almost Zelda-like charm. I think the release date was September 19th but again the camera decided to show the darkened room full of the backs of people's heads so I don't know. Thanks for that.

The director of Square Enix arrives on stage looking like the bags under his eyes spend all day bagging bags in a bag factory, whilst his plucky underling talks through and controls a Final Fantasy Fifteen demo. An initially impressive Shadow of The Colossus-esque scenario slowly loses its impact as the player is repeatedly swatted around by this giant monster and struggles to do any damage while his troupe of unfeasibly well-groomed allies make dumb little quips.

This goes on for an excruciating several minutes with a "Preorder now" banner having the audacity to pop up like all those shitty reminders on Windows 10. Eventually the player finally initiates the QTE correctly and our boy band of brothers destroy the monster's arm.

Colour me whatever colour unimpressed is.

Next up is a trailer for The Division Underground. Something we're left to assume is DLC that releases on a date I can't quite make out because of the cameras.

Time-Travelling "Patrick Bach" (as he is currently known) walks out to talk about Battlefield 1, which to be honest I'm still feeling fatigue from after all the hype it got in EA's conference. He announces its October 28th release date but Xbox One owners who are members of EA Access that perform the necessary animal sacrifices and were born under a full moon on the day of the Sabbath, can get it on October 13th...So hooray for that.

To brag about Xbox Live comes Mike Ybarra. A man whose voice is a mere stone's throw away from Kermit The Frog. He introduces some revolutionary new features like playing music in the background of your games, which I can do already on my 360. Language settings, so you no longer have to blindly navigate your console in Cantonese, and Cortana, the off-brand Siri that most people will still use from their phones rather than their consoles.

I know the Xbox One started without a bunch of basic features but this is ridiculous.

Someone heckles poor Capybarra as he tries to announce "Three of the most requested features" coming to Xbox Live. The first of these is "Clubs on Xbox Live" which appears to just be chat-rooms for specific games but a nice idea all the same. The oddly titled "Looking for Group on Xbox Live" is just an advanced search and matchmaking service for multiplayer and up third as I should have guessed "Arena on Xbox Live". A kind of tournament system designed for pushing competitive gaming.

With those background frivolities out of the way it's onto the serious business of-oh never mind it's Minecraft...

An unbearably chirpy young woman and a bald man so nervous he looks like he's going to melt introduce us to "the friendly update". A teeth-grindly twee name for what is ultimately again just cross-platform play. Chirpy girl and boiling egg are joined in their cringeful demo by John Carmack spinning in circles wearing an Oculus headset and looking more ridiculous than Andy on his desolate gaming chair.

Also revealed are "add ons" or mods as everyone else calls them, allowing you to reskin blocks, enemies and characters plus seemingly change their attributes to an extent, making usually docile NPC's into capable fighting allies.

Bubbly and crumbly finally leave only to have another controller trailer appear for a service that seems to let you customise the colours of your controller and likely buy them for an extortionate price directly from Microsoft.

A brief mysterious trailer for Inside plays, showing a strange building with people watching other people in dreary office environments with nonchalant employees and sinister undertones. From the creators of Limbo this very much seems to fit their M.O but there's really nothing else to go on. It's out June 29th.

Tobias Funke then appears on stage with grandiose claims about Inside like "it is a masterpiece" and "one of the best games I've ever played" But rather than show us any footage or tell us anything at all about it, he announces Limbo is now free and fucks off to let the obligatory "Indie games compilation trailer" play...

You can't just do that..

Many of the numerous games shown look interesting and worthy of their own segment but of course no segment comes. The now mythical Cuphead is front and centre with nothing more than a vague 2016 release date. Popular Animal Crossing minus the animals farm-em-up Stardew Valley makes an appearance as does the spiritual successor to Banjo Kazooie, Yooka Laylee.

Everything else is given about three seconds screen time or less so out of a misguided sense of moral superiority, to try and counter the lack of respect these near-subliminal flashes of games get, I'll do my best to give the absolute maximum amount of description for each title from what little information the trailer delivers.

Outlast - A horror game that's very dark with a field of crops and at least one zombie. This zombie may or may not be able to use a torch.

Deliver Us The Moon - An Astronaut is on the moon, presumably he must deliver it somewhere but all he has is a space station corridor and a little moon car.

FlintHook - A possibly pirate themed pixellated 2D platformer where you play as a cutesy skeleton with a gun.

Far - A vehicle of some kind is travelling, probably quite a distance. You might have to maintain this vehicles' functionality.

Slime Rancher - You shoot muddy chickens and blobs with faces using a gun of ambiguous output and effect. The blob with a face explodes into stars. It is unclear if this is good or bad. A small carrot is also present.

Shadow Tactics - Japanese people in Japan sometimes attack each other with swords. Possibly a top-down hack and slash game.

Figment - Something vaguely humanoid wearing a black cat onesie slides down stripey pipes connected to platforms that either float without support structures or rest on huge red arses towering high above the clouds. The tops of the platforms grow trees that sprout tuning forks and the arses have windows. There are also bridges connecting the floating platforms and plants that spit purple blobs at you. Probably poison. A lute levitates ominously above a patch of three blades of grass.

The Culling - First person game where you try to kill other people by throwing things or blowing them up on bridges. Apart from some green gas in one of the backgrounds this free-for-all deathmatch appears to take place in a quaint forest or perhaps a national park.

For the King - A turn-based RPG with a cartooney art style. There is a lava level and possibly also The Kraken.

Beacon - An isometric shooter in a Sci-Fi fantasy land where glowing triangles open and the ground is quite red and dry. Possibly set on a future Mars with civilisation, jagged orange trees and towers perhaps for radio given the sticks interpretable as antenna on the top. The ground also gives way in places to large sinkholes where an odd turquoise light shines. Our character is too busy shooting at other very small and undetailed people to notice this or perhaps it is simply a normal geographical detail in this world.

Hand of Fate 2 - A fortune teller makes tarot cards fly and spin in front fo you. This causes you to lose your mind and attack the inhabitants of a city with Ancient Middle-Eastern Architecture.

Below - A game where you struggle to traverse a dark and misty land because the camera's zoomed out too far. (Perhaps they were inspired by the conference itself).

Raiders - (For some reason given a whopping 5-10 seconds) A shirtless man with red eyes, hair and shark teeth finds himself without ammo for his triple-barrelled shotgun when an armed guard is right around the corner. This disappoints him so and he sighs. He then decides to charge the guard completely unarmed perhaps having resigned himself to death.

Another man with blue LEDs in his head and a poorly stitched collar shoots a gun at something off-screen for which he feels no emotion towards. We see a guard's arm punch the shark teeth man and he falls to his knees looking displeased. (None of this was gameplay so this could be a point and click adventure game for all I know.)

Bloodstained - Anime girls do Castlevania on a pirate ship.

Everspace - A first person Sci-Fi flight game where you control a spaceship in space that shoots at other spaceships, also in space. Some of these spaceships are bigger than your spaceship.

The trailer finishes with the words "Risk Takers" "Rule Breakers" "Game Changers" appearing on screen. I can't help wishing Microsoft would take a bloody risk and show us more than a blink of each of these games if they're so wonderful, innovative and important to you.

Tobias returns to talk about Xbox Game Preview, which is just Steam Early Access for Xbox where you can play games before they're finished. No word yet if you can leave abusive threatening reviews or find identically worded ones praising the game suspiciously unreservedly.

The gameplay demo for We Happy Few hits a bit too close to home in a dystopian sixties world where everyone takes "Happy pills" and those who don't are violently hunted for being "downers". But that's probably why it seems such an interesting concept to me. (I live in the 60's you see).

They've already nailed the oppressive Orwellian atmosphere and creepy factor.

The visuals and atmosphere feel very similar to Bioshock, as does the first person melee combat and gunplay. The survival elements do differ however, as of course does the setting and characters. The game purports to be procedurally generated and yet have a fully-voiced cinematic story. I don't fully understand how you can pull that off but if the developers manage it, We Happy Few could be a tense, disturbing and immersive experience in a uniquely bizarre setting.

Next on stage is the lead designer of CD Projekt Red who jumps around like an irritating hyperactive titwit before announcing the card game Gwent. A mini-game from The Witcher 3 that became so popular it apparently warranted its own stand-alone game.

A half CG, half gameplay trailer for Tekken 7 shows Akuma, a guest character from Street Fighter, fighting Tekken mainstay, Heihachi. The gameplay looks a bit loose if I'm perfectly honest with some sketchy innacurate hitboxes and too many power-ups involving characters striking the same pose repeatedly. The game is due Early 2017.

Granted it might just be the cameras insisting on showing us pointless background nothing every five seconds.

A trailer plays for Dead Rising 4 which appears to return to the goofyness most fans loved about it originally alongside a Christmas setting and release date this year. I can't say any more than that because the fucking cameras cut to the blackened out audience yet again.

Shannon Loftis Conversion arrives to wax poetic about Microsoft's dedication to original IPs whilst the crowd makes stupid noises whenever she pauses to breathe or silently ask for appreciation.

Eventually President of Platinum games and half-hearted cosplayer of Cypher from the Matrix, Hideki Kamiya steps out to talk about Scalebound and "the biggest boss Platinum has ever created." Sadly bigger doesn't mean better and the giant enemy crab is ultimately little more than a Zelda style creature with a big glowing weak spot that you attack for massive damage.

As for Scalebound's core gameplay, which I believe this is the first time we're seeing, the phrase that comes to mind is "Devil May Cry with Dragons." Even down to the chatty main protagonist who borders on insufferable with his constant cliched quips. Riding a dragon looks fun but all the character can seem to do besides that is hilariously flick bogey arrows at the giant oblivious enemy.

This is the second game in this conference to not understand that Shadow of the Colossus perfected the huge boss formula already. If there's a huge enemy we're out of range of, we want to climb up the fucker and stab it in the eye. Not to poke at his shins with our relative toothpick until they expire naturally and we take the credit for the splinters in their knees.

Unfortunately scaling the monster only happens at set intervals in this boss fight and frankly the whole thing feels very last-gen. Hopefully I'm wrong but that's my impressions, with a vague release date of 2017, there's still time for things to change.

XBOX ONE AND WINDOWS TEN EXCLUSIVE, DID YOU HEAR GUYS? IT'S FUCKING OURS, HAND'S OFF SONY! MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE.

The maddening pop up banners graciously allow a purely cinematic trailer for Sea Of Thieves playing in the background. A Rare Studio Head appears to talk about the game and whilst I was going to give him a stupid nickname, "Rare Studio Head" conjures an amusing enough image for me.

A gameplay premier promises "Real gameplay. Real players."and "Great water"? ...Is, is that a joke? I mean, it is Rare and they did use to make jokes but this is also E3...I honestly don't know any more.

The gameplay looks quite fun as a team-based pirate game where you can explore islands, drink rum, sail and mantain your ship together and attack others. Sadly it's online only multiplayer, as is everything nowadays. Some unnecessary face-cams of these "real players" justify people shouting and screaming and being irritating throughout the entire edited gameplay demo but ultimately a good enough segment to the conference.

Although this guy might literally be turning into a pirate...

State of Decay 2 and Halo Wars 2 get mostly CG trailers with a bit of gameplay that doesn't tell us all that much. Phil Spencer returns to the stage along with his creepy theme tune and babbles some bollocks about Xbox's history and freedom of choice and boundaries, basically summarising all the most boring parts of the conference.

He eventually starts speaking some words with meaning and a trailer for a new Xbox One and a half plays. At one point several people say they gave the "SOC six terraflops of computing capability" in this deadly serious trailer full of developers talking against a pitch black background with a triumphant orchestral score. I'm sure that's actually impressive in computing terms but I'm a simple guy, you might as well have said it's got millions of Snap, Crackle and Boopy Bops.

It's got ninety five Gigawhoops and Faddy Sub Ploppers...Alright I'll stop now.

"It's the we heard you console" claims one woman,
"These are the highest quality pixels that anybody has seen." says some other guy. All the games and accessories will work on both this and the old Xbawks apparently and without actually getting to see the console "Project Scorpio" fades onto screen along with a holiday 2017 release date.

Phil then wraps up the conference talking about all three consoles, the Xbox One, Xbox One S and Project Scorpio all being compatible as though it's some great achievement not realising that no one will buy the Xbox One S, now we know there's a huge upgrade just around the corner...Great plan there chaps.

So overall a pretty weak conference from Microsoft. I think some good games were shown but I could only be certain had the fucking video camera mixers not decided to randomly deprive us of footage and information. As usual, way too much corporate drivel, non-gameplay trailers and that infuriating smug attitude of expecting praise and applause rather than earning it.

Combined with Project Scorpio being the gun that shoots its own Xbox One S foot and the unrelenting patronising exclusive and preorder pop ups, nagging and distracting from every single trailer, Microsoft's E3 conference was very much an okay film shown in a shit cinema.

Starring bad actors.

E3 2016 - Bethesda

Of the secondary tier of conferences at E3 alongside EA and Ubisoft, Bethesda was the undisputed winner last year thanks to down to earth speeches and plenty of game footage. This year they kick off with a new Quake title, an arena shooter FPS called Quake Champions.

Unsurprisingly after the success of the new Doom, which returned to a retro shooter style reminiscent of its 1993 original, this game will likely copy that style (also like its progenitor from 1996) capitalising on the frenetic, fast paced, less realistic play-style that has gone full circle and become refreshing again for people tired of grounded, cover-based shooters.

The CG trailer finishes and a budget Wilson Fisk arrives on stage to fully announce Quake Champions with technical specs like 120Hz and unlocked framerate which I can only guess is impressive judging by the crowd reaction. Then again by the end of this conference, judging by the crowd reaction would be like trying to jet ski on jellyfish wrapped around your feet. Ambiguous and potentially dangerous.

It's called "Rabbit In A Shitshow".

Bargain Bin Kingpin goes on to connect Quake with E-sports and competitive gaming which seems to be a big push for everyone this year. He makes a point to describe the game using words like "classic" and "fast" but disappointingly no actual gameplay is shown.

Next comes Pete Hines looking like he's got a head inside his head trying to get out. He talks about Bethesda's recent successes like Elder Scrolls Online, Fallout Shelter, Fallout 4 and Doom. My only criticism here is actually the crowd making obnoxious grunts and dog noises like "bros" at a sports match or something. Even EA didn't have that and half of their entire conference was sports.

This walk down memory lane also serves as a hype-ramp into future announcements, so what a flaccid anti-climax it is to hear about Elder Scrolls: Legends again. The strategy card game no one asked for. A cinematic trailer for the card game's "story mode" (which is a sentence I still don't fully understand) tries to introduce some characters before dramatically crashing to a black screen for ten seconds in the middle of it.

Peak Times continues to talk about the game with some possible gameplay footage showing behind him. It's difficult to determine what is gameplay when it revolves around staring at a virtual desk but he announces the game is also coming to mobiles and tablets which I guess makes sense.

Card games are fine, Video games are great. Combined though I just don't see the point.

Next up Bethesda Director and Teen Heartthrob Award Todd Howard thanks fans for making Fallout 4 such a success and introduces new add-ons to the game.

These include elevators, armour and weapon racks, conveyor belts and "track kits" which are essentially Marble Run style slides and flumes. Having not played the game this feels more like the components to building a factory at this point but presumably they can be used for traps and shelter defences.

This is furthered by a new feature of being able to build your own vault, seemingly blurring the line between Fallout 4 and Shelter. Speaking of which, will also get an upgrade with new locations, enemies, characters and combat system as well as being announced on PC as of July 2016.

I haven't seen gleeful sadism like this since Timesplitter's body-inflating dart gun.

"There is something else that you've been asking us about." Says Matthew Mccushionghey before a trailer for a remastered Skyrim plays and my only thought is "Who exactly was asking them about this and why?"

Well putting aside the fact that a remaster is almost always an inferior announcement to a brand new entry in a series, there are multiple problems with remastering Skyrim. Firstly it's the most recent game so there will be less of a contrast between graphics of last generation and this generation. Surely choosing an older game would emphasise the progress made since then with a far more significant contrast?

Secondly, by remastering an older game you get to revive its accessibility. Many new players (myself included) only began playing The Elder Scrolls series with Skyrim so to introduce players to some of the great prior games in the series can only be a good thing surely?

And thirdly epic RPG's like Skyrim often have players sink hundreds if not thousands of hours into them. Making all their progress essentially obsolete with a remaster doesn't make buying the touched-up version all too appealing.

But of course, remastering any of the older games also requires more work so just forget all those benefits I guess. The crowd at the conference seems pretty excited so I guess I'm in the minority on this one.

I won't pretend it doesn't look amazing, I just think there were better choices.

Next the reformed Niko Bellic steps on stage to talk about Dishonoured. Although rather than the expected Dishonoured 2, he announces a new game from Arcane Studios called Prey. A futuristic FPS with supernatural elements and psychological themes somewhere between Dead Space and Soma. Due for release sometime next year on Xbox One, PS4 and PC and despite a seemingly purely cinematic trailer, the setting and plot is very intriguing and Prey is a solid addition to the conference.

Noah Bennet from Heroes appears on screen to continue talking about Doom's success. It's grating at this point but at least Bethesda makes the point of thanking the fans and the talk does eventually progress to something worthwhile. Namely the whole host of features, maps, weapons and game modes being added soon, most of which are completely free which is hard to make any criticism of really..

Jack Coleman leaves and Bee Hives returns to announce a demo of Doom's first level arriving on all current gen platforms but for some reason, only for a week...That kind of stifles the good will attitude to be honest. Is it really such a huge business loss to just let people play the first level indefinitely?

He also claims "youngsters" call demos "shareware" now...Is that true? I still call them demos but I'm young, I am still young right? Shit! Are demos old fuddy duddy language now?

"I remember when a blowjob was what you did just to get the game cartridge working."

Continuing to impose quarter-life-crisis dread on me is the E3 crowd, as the game director for The Elder Scrolls Online appears. The deformed dog-seal grunts and barks return in force along with piercing sustained banshee wails and I begin to wonder if I'm watching E3 or the fucking X-Factor.

Speaking of meaningless dead air, game director Matt Firor continues to sing ESO's praises with it's 7 million players and other grand statistics emblazoned across a trailer for a game that's already out. I guess you'd call it a highlights reel or perhaps a porno since this conference is starting to feel so masturbatory.

The now intensely punchable crowd continues screaming at the stage until Matt finally announces something properly. A Dark Brotherhood DLC releasing...well, today actually. A trailer shows a lot of backstabbing and grim talk just as you'd expect but the crowd must have not expected that because they lose their little minds all over again.

A more technical update called "One Tamriel" is announced which, from what I can gather, connects all the players in the world with "no level restrictions" or "content barriers" and apparently that's never been done in a multi-platform MMORPG before. Which probably explains why I've had no interest in the genre as arbitrary content barriers seem like a stupid idea in the first place. Regardless, the audience yet again goes apeshit about the news.

Maybe they just really like this guy...

Moving on, Beate Rimes returns to explain how Bethesda too is trying to screw with the E3 conference formula as much as possible by having an after-party where the already raucous crowd can get shitfaced and watch Blink 182, who might be the first thing this audience didn't go rabid-dog insane for.

Bethesda steps into the Virtual Reality ring by announcing Fallout 4 and Doom to support VR capabilities, siding with the ludicrously expensive HTC Vive. We then bounce over to some kind of pre show-post show buffer commentators who make some bad jokes and then threaten to inflict them on game developers in interviews after the conference.

To close the show, oddly separated from the studio's earlier segment we hear from Arcane Studios again, this time, they are talking about Dishonoured 2. A clean-shaven, sleep-deprived David O'Doherty arrives to premier the gameplay footage. Footage that at first consists only of sweeping views around the game's environments but granted, they look visually impressive and his talk about the detail the city will have and the natural, interruptable behaviour of the NPC's sounds good too.

I'm going to describe the walkthrough overall because to stop and start as many times as this segment did would just be annoying. So the game has two playable protagonists, Corvo Attano from the first game and Emily Caldwin, the woman seen in last year's cinematic trailer. The walkthrough shows an area called the Dust District which naturally is plagued by dust storms that affect your visibility and the enemies'. We see some of Emily's supernatural powers and the creative traps and distractions you can create with their combinations.

Daybed O'Coffeetea talks about the wide array of choice the game will have in how you complete the missions. Stealth or action, lethal or non-lethal, with the latter presumably having some implication on the story or perhaps just whether guards can wake their colleagues up.

Another level displays time-travelling abilities between past and present versions of a level. Gimmicky perhaps but what looked like a fun feature for just one of the levels. The diverse and choice-oriented gameplay, tactical use of gadgets, supernatural abilities and weapons, plus the enchanting steampunk aesthetic makes Dishonoured 2 a potentially fantastic sequel and I haven't even played the first one.

Plus the time-travel doohickey itself looks cool as hell.

Things finish with Dishonoured 2's release date of November 11th 2016 and a gameplay trailer showing mostly what we just saw. Pete Finds himself back on stage and after a lot of thanking all the developers and bigging up their after-party shenanigans, the conference comes to a close.

Bethesda was never going to match the quality of last year's conference but they could have done without congratulating themselves on everything for the majority of this one. That said, what seems like some undeniably good content and games are on the way and had they employed snipers to take out those knuckle-dragging neandafucks in the audience I would consider Bethesda winners already...