E3 2013!

I once held the belief that going to E3 was like a gamer's pilgrimage. Everyone wanted to go to experience the amazing events first hand. Now I only want to go so that I can mock them and throw things in disappointment.

E3 for those who don't know is an entertainment expo focused on the video games (something I hold close to my heart). It's the biggest gaming expo of the year, where all the big names go to unveil what they're working on and what's coming out in the upcoming year. I used to remember looking forward to the developments of E3 with excitement and optimism. It used to be great, seeing all the massive releases from Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo along with some of the big developers and publishers showing what they're working on too. I remember looking forward to the week long feast of gaming deliciousness, being able to look forward to the rest of the year and all the amazing stuff that was to be released. The sense of mystery surrounding the key note speeches and the barely contained excitement of the waiting crowd to see what they had in store for us.

Nowadays though...things have changed. Don't get me wrong, the show is still as big and as extravagant (as only American's can produce) and it still runs for a good 3/4 days but the content has been lacking in previous years. I've become a cynic and a skeptic instead of the optimistic and bright-eyed gamer that looked forward to the show with quiet expectation and a whole host of my own predictions. Of course I was younger back then and things seemed alot brighter and more fun, maybe it's because I'm growing up the show doesn't have the same effect on me as it did....or the past couple incredibly disappointing years have just made me rather uncaring about the show.

Like I said the show's content had been pretty lame for the past couple years. Some pretty poor key note speeches revealing nothing all that impressive. Sure we have been in the 7th generation of consoles for a good while now and things have begun to stagnate as the technology was limited by the capabilities of the current consoles so there's only so much you can do with the limited tech and eventually it has to leap forward. But still, the displays had become lack luster, the releases had become just re-hashes of old games given a face lift. There were very few new, interesting releases that really grabbed much attention.

So this year I went into the show with skepticism and expecting it to be shit, but instead, I was delightfully surprised. This year's show was very impressive compared to the past couple years. The big reveals of the consoles may have added something to the show this year....although saying that the less said about the XboxOne the better really. It was a pretty poor display really. This generation's console war has been won by Sony's PS4 and they aren't even released yet. Microsoft were pretty poor and Sony could have torn them apart in the first 5minutes if they wanted to...but if they'd done that then no-one would have watched the rest of their show. They waited until just before the end for a small speech that completely blew Microsoft apart. The crowd's reaction to the Xbox conference was pretty tame throughout....Sony pretty much whipped them into a frenzy! I'd say they stole the show but that goes to Ubisoft once more with their Splinter Cell: Blacklist, Watch Dogs and something new called The Divison.

Their conference was by far my favourite of the show, they got Aisha Tyler to host which was a fantastic choice as she really interacted with the crowd and was pretty funny (reminds me that Archer season four is out soon). They unveiled more of Watch Dogs, which was awesome. They also showed something new called The Division. They introduced it with a pretty impressive video sequence that has kind of become typical of Ubisoft. The gameplay looks amazing and I really can't wait for it to be released.

Needless to say with Microsoft's poor performance I'll probably be buying a PS4....meaning I'll have to leave my trusty gamertag in limbo for awhile, or at least until Microsoft get their shit together.

I'd go into more detail but I've rambled for a while and can't be bothered to. Maybe next week.

Catch ya later folks