The E3 Retrospectapalooza

[Nappi]

But where is his iconic cap?!

[Bjorn]

Caps are so PrE3™ ¹, now it's all about iconic lazers. 

 

 

 

¹ 

PrE3 is the catchy new phrase hip companies can use to describe things that were in before the current years E3 conference, but were superseded by the clearly superior and innovative ideas on display at the greatest electronic entertainment show on Earth.

[Nappi]

I bet he has a drone companion.

[BigJKO]

The lasers were THE BEST THING about it!

 

Exactly!

 

Man.. I've watched that Zelda footage over and over and I can't get over how beautiful the smoke/particle/explosions look. They look perfectly cartoonish.

[Griddlelol]

Yup, the laser arrow and mech-oktoroc had me very interested. I don't think I've been this excited since WW.

 

The art style looks like a refinement of both Skyward sword (which I didn't play, because I didn't own a Wii for long enough, plus the art style was gross) and Twilight Princess (which is in my back catalogue still, and had a great look). I think they've done a great job, especially as the visual aspects of Zelda games tend to get the most noise and anger. 

[dartmonkey]

I think I'd probably need to see it in motion, but as I recall Bayonetta 1 was similarly weirdly proportioned in that regard. I can see a case being made that it's a parody of sexiness, that it's taking a sexy look and distorting it so far that it loops back around into being creepy, and the Samus suit certainly manages that!

Makes sense - that screen is from Bayonetta 1. Speaking of which, I know it's an easy fan request that they throw the original on the same disc, but dev-wise it's a considerable amount of work so I'm surprised. A remastered edition hitting the eshop would have been great, but I suppose packing in the original is a better strategy for them. You don't need to have played the first one but if you don't believe us, you can. Platinum are probably sick of critical acclaim and poor sales. I wanted to play the original but the PS3 version is notoriously dicey.

 

ZeldaU looks...good. Maybe I'm watching at the wrong resolution. It looks very Skyward Sword-y. Lovely, but it's not IGNing me.

 

Regardless of content, the Nintendo video presentation was so much more enjoyable to watch than the others that I wouldn't be surprised to see MS and Sony follow suit next year, or at least supplement a shorter onstage gig with a video. The advantages of editing and sidestepping awkward moments surely trump anything a middle-aged white bloke can rustle up on stage, no?

[Polish Hill]

What I don't understand about Sony and MS choosing to run their own live conferences is it doesn't seem to garner any additional coverage.  There's the chance a flub becomes some dumb internet meme and the amount of money that goes into those sets has to be enormous.  Maybe there are too many people saying that's the way it is at each company but it certainly comes off as odd.  Or it is just a big game of chicken and neither MS or Sony wants to stop first and be made to look weak if the other continues with the spectacle.

 

Anyone else check out Giant Bomb's coverage of Destiny?  I don't know if other outlets have something similar but while the game looks great it is a little odd to see just how many similarities it shares with Halo.  To be expected when you created one of the biggest franchises in sci-fi but between the "not Guilty Spark" companion and Ghost-like speeder I'm curious how many of these examples will be in the final game.  Certainly not a knock but I was hoping they would distance themselves a bit more from their previous work.

[tegan]

It's not that I'm offended or anything, it's the structure of the body.  It looks alien, like some horrific monster trying to casually pass itself off as a sexy human long enough to claim its next victim, but failing horribly. 

 

Bayonetta's always had super weird proportions that make her much taller and thinner than a real person, while the Varia suit has weird proportions that make it far wider than a real person.

 

Yup, the laser arrow and mech-oktoroc had me very interested.

 

I like that the enemy being fought is basically that thing from The Incredibles.

 

But where is his iconic cap?!

 

Someone asked Aonuma why Link looked so different and he responded by saying that it's not necessarily Link in the trailer. I'm thinking this is the character customization that they mentioned wanting to do way, way back when they first announced that they were making a Wii U Zelda.

[Justin Leego]

But where is his iconic cap?!

 

The iconic minish cap is a preorder bonus, of course.

[Reyturner]

Who is game?

Also, Liz Ryerson is cool and makes cool things.

[SecretAsianMan]

Yes, yes they did.

 

http://www.polygon.com/e3-2014/2014/6/10/5798592/assassins-creed-unity-female-assassins

 

And here's Ubisoft's response to cutting playable female characters

 

http://kotaku.com/ubisoft-responds-to-assassins-creed-female-character-co-1589413130

[Twig]

I think the original Polygon article had better justification than this new bit of nonsense PR speak. "We don't have time" is reasonable justification to anyone who knows that Ubisoft CORPORATE is probably pressing them to get it released ASAP, and Ubisoft DEVELOPER potentially actually does want to include female characters.

This new excuse is "Well there are four Arnos running around, get over it." Laughable.

[Ucantalas]

I kind of hate seeing the "What do you mean its more work? You're just being lazy!" mentality surrounding the original justification. Designing characters and creating the assets isn't a simple process that takes an extra half hour at the end of the day. I feel like a lot of people complaining about it don't realize that these things are planned out well in advance and take time to make, they don't just magically appear on store shelves one day.

[Bjorn]

I genuinely think that Ubi tries harder than other big pubs to think about diversity, but still manage to fuck it up on a regular basis.  So I do give them credit for at least trying, and for doing things like hiring Aisha Tyler as their presenter for E3. Though I am a bit tired of this phrase at this point:

 

Assassin's Creed is developed by a multicultural team of various faiths and beliefs and we hope this attention to diversity is reflected in the settings of our games and our characters.

 

It doesn't really matter how diverse your team is, if you fuck something up, you fuck something up.  And having female models in MP modes ought to be a standard by now.  It ought to be budgeted for.  Period.  I think it's completely fair to criticize any game with an MP mode that has only one gender for models.  Plenty of games manage to do it, including previous AC games, so it feels really hollow.

 

And then there's the historical aspect.  The AC games don't claim to be historically accurate simulations, but the historical context does lend a kind of weight to them, and informs the story and lore of the games.  And as this piece points out, one of the most storied real life assassins of the French Revolution was a woman.  It's entirely possible that her, or someone like her, will show up as an NPC.  If not, then that plus a lack of female PC avatars follows the trend of historical fictions that downplay or completely eliminate the roles of women in history. 

[SuperBiasedMan]

I kind of hate seeing the "What do you mean its more work? You're just being lazy!" mentality surrounding the original justification. Designing characters and creating the assets isn't a simple process that takes an extra half hour at the end of the day. I feel like a lot of people complaining about it don't realize that these things are planned out well in advance and take time to make, they don't just magically appear on store shelves one day.

 

It is true that there's a lot of work involved in creating them, but relative to time spent creating males there isn't a real difference unless your artist have some deficiencies.

I feel like they could respond a lot better if they did a similar thing to Nintendo with Tomodachi Life, basically say "Ok, sorry. We did mess up, unfortunately it would take to much time to change it at this point but we can try sort it out early in projects next time."

 

Instead, saying "it takes too long" sounds like an excuse to fend people off and doesn't mean anything in their attitude to design will change.

[Dewar]

I kind of hate seeing the "What do you mean its more work? You're just being lazy!" mentality surrounding the original justification. Designing characters and creating the assets isn't a simple process that takes an extra half hour at the end of the day. I feel like a lot of people complaining about it don't realize that these things are planned out well in advance and take time to make, they don't just magically appear on store shelves one day.

 

Brad Miur on one of the older Massive Chalice team streams talked about the expense of creating models for multiple classes and sexes. They are dedicated to having characters of both sexes so iirc they had to reduce the number of classes in the game to come in under the art budget. It's a tough decision and, selfishly, I'd rather have more classes even if they decided to despense with guys completely and just have a valkyrie army. With larger productions and more money moving around, you'd think that Ubi could pull resources from somewhere else to get it done though.

[Justin Leego]

At least let the male assassins cosplay as women, then.

[Nachimir]

And here's Ubisoft's response to cutting playable female characters

 

http://kotaku.com/ubisoft-responds-to-assassins-creed-female-character-co-1589413130

 

strong female characters

 

DINGDINGDINGDINGDINGDINGDING

[lobotomy42]

It doesn't really matter how diverse your team is, if you fuck something up, you fuck something up.  And having female models in MP modes ought to be a standard by now.  It ought to be budgeted for.  Period.  I think it's completely fair to criticize any game with an MP mode that has only one gender for models.  Plenty of games manage to do it, including previous AC games, so it feels really hollow.

 

I agree with this, and I agree that this is something that should have been and could have been planned for.  Still, I'd much rather have an industry that employs a diverse group of talented people but produces somewhat predictably unrepresentative games than an industry populated by a single demographic that is well-trained in the art of PR-speak and making games that appear "diverse enough" to avoid creating controversy around themselves.  Yes, the obvious retort here is "Well shouldn't we have both???" and the obvious answer is "Yes, both are desirable." I guess my point is that at the end of the day I care more about diversity of actual people than diversity of fictional people.  (That said, I have no idea if Ubisoft is more/less diverse by whatever metric you prefer than other game companies. In which case, their entire statement is just BS.)

[SecretAsianMan]

Man, Ubisoft cannot stop shooting themselves in the foot

 

http://www.polygon.com/2014/6/11/5801330/far-cry-4-women-ubisoft

[Twig]

INCREDIBLE! Literally the exact same excuse.

I don't even.

[Gormongous]

Man, Ubisoft cannot stop shooting themselves in the foot

http://www.polygon.com/2014/6/11/5801330/far-cry-4-women-ubisoft

Jeez, it's like they're stuck drunk-posting press releases or something.

[thorn]

Wow. I wasn't expecting

from E3. Warning: May have a 'Jurassic Bark' effect on you.

[Merus]

Wow. I wasn't expecting

from E3. Warning: May have a 'Jurassic Bark' effect on you.

 

It had a 'Dead Island' effect on me.

[Erkki]

Wow, yeah. Dead island