E3 2015: Last Day In LA

 Today is the last day of E3, but Tim and I had a few appointments and games to check out before we can say adios to California. This was the last chance to get the low- down on on the games that we really wanted to see, so we lost ourselves in the crowds one last time.

 My first stop of the day was to the Square Enix booth, and there were a lot of familiar faces there to greet me. Agent 47 was there, with a game simply called Hitman. Developer Io promises a “pure Hitman experience” in this digital download. The game is set in a dynamic world that will constantly evolve and grow. The Contracts mode from Hitman Absolution is returning, and some high-level global assassinations will be implemented into the game. I am a bit concerned with the digital aspect of this game; fans of the series will have to take a serious looks at larger external drives if this trend continues and there is no rental trial option for those of us who no longer piss money away on broken games. I’ll buy the game when, and if, I know that it works and delivers the experience I’m paying for. This one drops December 8th.

 Rico is back with his special dictator-toppling brand of freedom fighting. The game is set in a fully explorable 400 square miles. The grappling hook returns, along with the wingsuit and parachute. Everything in this game is destructible, the vehicles can be modded, and weapons and gears can be delivered to the player via the Rebel Drop System. Just Cause 3 will be available starting December 1st.

 David Jensen is back for a new cyborg adventure. Players will have several new gadgets and ammo types to play with than they did in the last game. There was a shocking shatter bullet thing, EMP bullets, remote hacking, thermal vision, etc. Strangely, the Square Enix team felt it necessary to highlight the fact that the game had more female combatants. I can’t remember the last time I played a game and wished that there were more women to shoot. Deus Ex will put more women in your crosshairs in early 2016.

 A small dev team has been working on a new Forgotten Realms adventure for Wizards of the Coast, and it looks kick ass. This PC title not only allows gamers to play through as a party in the traditional D&D way, but dungeons can be customized by a Dungeon Master. DMs have control of rooms, decorations and furniture, monster types and abilities, traps and ambushes, weather and time of day: the creative possibilities are very impressive. I played through a dungeon as a part of a group. Movement was the destination click type prominent in RTS games since Command and Conquer. A bottom screen menu allowed access to potions and special abilities as we made our way through a dungeon that was built, before our eyes, just minutes before we started the game. This is a custom dungeon builder with  D&D pedigree. Why hasn’t this been done before?

 Tablet and phone gaming giant Innogames has ended the closed beta on Elvenar. This German company cut their teeth on Tribal Wars before bringing the wildly successful Forge of Empires to phones and tablets. Elvenar features the same type of city building and resource management as Forge of Empires, but with an improved battle system. Tribal Wars 2 is another Innogames strategic browser RTS game, but failure to defend your territory ends your game: RTS permadeath! Innogames promises a new RTS in the future, as well as a mobile RPG.

 

ChunkySoup 

 ChunkySoup is tired. I had a plan. A wonderful plan.The lines for Mirror’s Edge, Halo 5: Guardians, Rise of the Tomb Raider, Arkham Knight, Sony’s VR and others have been so incredibly long that I figured the last day they should be shorter. That is where I have failed. They weren’t as everyone else HAD THE SAME PLAN! Lines as long or even longer for most seems to be the way things went today. So I started hitting other games.

 When Lego Dimensions was announced I just about lost my crap! After the 20 minute demo movie I was shown I found my crap but it’s across the field and not listening as I call it back. Every Lego Dimensions character can play is every Lego Dimensions universe. As the playsets change, such as the Scooby Doo set, the character animation also changed. Not only were the Scooby Doo characters drawn with black comic book style outlines but when Gandalf, Batman and Wyldstyle show up they are too. You can have up to a combination of 7 characters and vehicles on the playset at one time. Having that ability is like unlocking all the characters in Free Play mode in the Lego games. On top of that someone managed to put Portal into Dimensions complete with Glados, Wheatley, Chell complete with a Lego portal gun and maybe even some cake! The best part is the sarcasm and voice over work is spot on and it had me giggling as the movie progressed. 

 Another unique mechanic in Lego Dimensions is that you can move the characters around on the base to help heal them or to complete a mission. You will also need to transform the buildable vehicles into 1 of 3 standard configurations possible to progress. The video and digital instruction booklet are nice but I can’t reconcile the fact that constantly moving the figures and remaking the vehicle takes me out of the game even for a brief moment. Back to my possible ADHD above I guess.

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 I know Jones covered Guitar Hero Live, but that was the first time he has picked up a plastic axe. I went in as a long time fan that hasn’t played in what feels like a long time. I knew the button layout on the new guitar was different but I didn’t realize how much it would affect my playing. Gone are the five colors and now you just have two rows of three buttons. Black above, white below and hold both down for both. I played on normal and right away had issues. My previous training had my fingers gravitate towards the middle of the neck and I kept hitting either the wrong color or both colors until I gave my head a shake. Consciously making the effort felt like learning it all over again and that’s not a bad thing as by the end of the song I was having a good time with a music game once again!

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 Jones and I got to see Wizards of the Coast new game: Sword Coast Legends. Hoping to launch in September, this is truly video game Dungeons and Dragons by the people who brought us Dungeons and Dragons. You can play as a DM or as a player. I watched the DM side while Jones played as a fighter. Check out his article for that. As the DM you can procedurally generated dungeons much like worlds in Minecraft. Then you can place all manners of traps, enemies, décor (including freshly or long time dead things), vendors, mini bosses, big bosses, secret rooms, etc. As the players play you have the ability to watch, guide, be benevolent or not. Do the players need help? You can level down some of the enemies or even help hurt the enemies that are attacking. Are the players running through to easily? Throw more monsters at them! The DM picks up currency as well as the players and can spend it on putting in new traps or enemies in the player’s way.

https://youtu.be/ByNCxY3QDag[width=650,height=366]

 You can create dungeons offline as well and share them with the community to play through or host a party either public or private. All in all it was a polished presentation by Wizards of the Coast who arguably are the inspiration behind our industry.

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