Luke Kalmar’s Top Three Moments of E3
This year’s E3 was basically a dream for me. Over the course of a few days, three games that I have been desperately waiting for were officially revealed to the public. One is a new addition to a stellar, longtime series that I’ve truly become massive fan of since my first experience in 2008. Another is the beginning of a possible new trilogy (I hope) for an epic space opera that I first voraciously devoured during my 2011 spring break. The last is the definitive return of my absolute favorite game ever. The similarities between these three are very slim, but they do have one thing in common: they each made me (figuratively) die from anticipation.
Fallout Boy
Announced with a teaser trailer before E3, I was already primed for Fallout 4 when E3 rolled around. Fallout 3 was a truly incredible game and anything that is being promoted as the next step forward has my immediate attention. It also helped that the early trailer still gives me chills. I knew that Bethesda was going to push this game hardcore during their presentation so I was prepared to get blown away.
Wouldn’t you know it, that’s exactly what happened. Everything about Fallout 4 screams Game of the Year. The gameplay looks amazing. The voice acting is superb. The opening sequence that seamlessly allows you to create your character (male or female!), and even puts you in a pre-apocalypse Boston suburb to witness the atomic nightmare, had me hooked immediately. Then you have the increased focus on weapon modification, the promise of building your own community, and characters actually saying your created name instead of something generic like The Courier or The Lone Wanderer. Just when I thought it couldn’t get any better, Bethesda revealed that this game is coming November 10th, 2015. Looks like it’s time to get a PS4!
Gaming of Mass Detruction
Rumors were abound that Electronic Arts was going to premiere some footage from the new Mass Effect game during their E3 presentation. It made sense, really. Mass Effect 3 came 3 years ago and Bioware has been hard at work on the next game. We’ve had behind the scenes interviews, concept art reveals, and plenty of teases on what came next. However, none of this was anything concrete on what we could expect from this next major installment that moves on from the epic Shepard trilogy.
E3 finally gave us stuff to grasp onto. Though information was sparse on who your character is, when exactly the game is taking place, or what the story is, we did learn some fairly important details. You will be human, for a start. Andromeda is a totally new location that you’re exploring many years after Shepard’s journey against the Reapers. The team you have will be new and will provide entirely new experiences, along with romantic options of course. Connections to the past games will be extremely sparse, but not entirely out of the question too. Andromeda was also given a Holiday 2016 release date. Outside of any delays, we should get another outstanding Mass Effect installment next year with more details coming even sooner.
A Remake Finalized
E3 was filled with plenty of surprises, but this was easily the biggest of them all. Pardon my language but holy shit. A remake of Final Fantasy VII is actually happening. This is after years of Square Enix saying it would be an impossible task due to scale, would never happen until they make a game that can top it, and releasing side games and a movie to expand the mythology. They even re-released FF VII more than a couple times. It honestly looked like they were trying to do everything but remake this game.
Yet now it’s real. The footage shown at E3 wasn’t much, but it gave us a ridiculously detailed and gorgeous look at the new Midgar, and brief shots of protagonists Barrett and Cloud. Unfortunately a release date isn’t set with some publications predicting 2017 (for the 20th anniversary) or 2018 since it’s clear Square Enix still has a lot of work to do. Supposedly this is more than just a graphical remake too with some expected changes, which makes sense and also gives it a prolonged release window. We were promised more information this winter so we’ll have to wait until then to get further details. That’s okay though, because I’m already losing my mind that this is actually happening. If it turns out to be crap however, I can easily move on. I still have my original copies after all.
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