E3 2014

[ratsoalbion]

WANT. When's it out?

[dezm0nd]

Only said 2015 which is a shame but still, very happy to see new ideas from Nintendo and Intelligent Systems

[Roy42]

And I dont know if everybody heard but aparently the character in the Zelda trailer wasnt Link,so maybe they are changing more things?

Eiji Aonuma neither confirmed nor denied that the character in the Zelda WiiU trailer was Link; that is all we know.

Aonuma has cleared up that the person in the trailer was in fact Link, and male. He was just joking before when he was being vague.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=836231

Unless you can find another site that reported that story, that's most likely fake. There is an astronomically small chance that a single, tiny website would get an exclusive piece of news like that before every other news source and that literally no one else would have first-hand confirmation.

Yes, there is a picture of a person with Aonuma. That proves nothing.

[Scrustle]

http://www.destructoid.com/link-will-be ... 6490.phtml

http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/arch ... wii-u.aspx

[Roy42]

Again, those are sites that are reporting on the MMGN article; so that's still just one source claiming to be firsthand.

[Todinho]

A interesting read reguarding the Female Assassin controversy this year: http://www.reddit.com/r/assassinscreed/ ... to/ci5z8i7
I dont know how acurate this is but it makes for some interesting for debate,especially mister Flabyo since you work in game development could you confirmy at least some of what is said there as acurate?Because it seems to be a little hyperbolic to me least.

[Flabyo]

It is absolutely correct that adding in female characters at this point in development would add a few months to the project and cost a fair bit.

That's not something I've ever disagreed with though.

The thing here is that they had them in the design and plan for the game and then dropped them. Which suggests they've fallen behind schedule somewhere on the art side (there's little to no coding overhead here, nothing more than a day or so) and made the call to drop the feature.

This happens all the time in game development. Levels, characters, mini-games, weapon sets etc... something always gets the boot as you approach the deadline.

The points of contention here are therefore:

1) Did they plan the project out carefully enough to cover slippage?

They're Ubisoft, and I'd like to think they plan things better than most. They also have a much greater amount of resource to throw at a problem than most as well. Of course they have a lot of games on the go at once right now, so there's a chance they can't borrow staff to make up shortfall like they clearly were during Watch Dogs.

2) Assuming that the project was slipping and cuts had to be made, why cut this feature in particular?

That's going to come down to production as well. As I said, it's a fair amount of work, and that large chunk of time on the GANT chart is going to look mighty attractive to the man with the scissors.

3) Having made this call, did they brief the people who would be doing interviews that the way to answer the question of 'where are the women?' was not 'we dropped them for time'.

This is a political hot potato, every developer should be aware of that and properly prepare their statements to the press. We've been seeing a lot of comments from games PR people lately that really haven't been thought through and end up making things worse (see Tomodachi Life).

Ultimately I agree with the way Dan Floyd put it. Yes, it's a lot of work to have playable characters of both sexes, but this is important in making your games inclusive and it should've been a much higher priority for the developers than it was. If you make a feature like that a major priority then it won't even be considered for cuts late on because you'll have already done most of it. This is the approach we took with Fable 2 and 3, despite the work load increase the design team felt very strongly that we needed to provide playable characters of both sexes, and so when we reached the point where we had to trim there was never any question of trimming her out because she was 95% done by then.

It's a case of what you consider important. Ubisoft, for various reasons most likely related to the story then penned, didn't think it was important enough to put the resources into it early on in the project, and so when something had to give, they gave. If this were single player only then there isn't really a story here, it's because the game has co-op that it becomes an issue, and they should've realised that.

So no, I don't think Ubisoft have any agenda here with this (they've had playable female characters in their various game series) but they have made a mistake that they can't really do anything about now.

[dezm0nd]

Nintendo planning on what's next for Metroid, both 2D and 3D.

http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2014/0 ... ear_future

[Cass]

Also re: female assassins - it sounds harsh, but cutting female assassins probably doesn't do a whole lot to the sales of AC3. This is why I get so jaded with hashtag activism - I mean, I'm sympathetic to it (god knows I want to see more diversity in protagonist characters and god knows having every game be fronted by the same bestubbled mid-20s white dude is the WORST) but ultimately Assassin's Creed Unity is going to sell a lot of copies and cutting the resources to make a female protagonist probably is going to turn out to be a smart business decision. And that's fucked up!

I mean, you could argue for the inclusion of female characters for ideological and creative reasons (both valid), but eventually you're going to run into the "does this make us more money" question, and the answer to that is still most likely "no".

[DomsBeard]

Still no Shenmue 3

Nintendo have really tempted me after E3. I'm more inclined to get a Wii U than a PS4 or Xbone right now to be honest.

[dezm0nd]

They genuinely had a strong presence this year, whilst mostly and understandably focusing on Wii U, even managed to surprise us with some 3DS stuff

[NokkonWud]

Nintendo have really tempted me after E3. I'm more inclined to get a Wii U than a PS4 or Xbone right now to be honest.

Really? That's surprising. It's quite nice to hear. I thought the next-gen consoles knocked it out the park though and they have a really strong end to 2014 too.
Nintendo did show Zelda mind and that looks pretty.

[Flabyo]

I think if you don't have a WiiU they've now actually demonstrated that there are enough reasons to get one, which to me wasn't the case before.

[Scrustle]

Just looking at this E3, I have to say I'm way more excited for the future of the Wii U than anything else right now too. I'm way more excited for Bayonetta 2 and the new Zelda than I have been for anything in quite a while, and I'm eager to play Hyrule Warriors, and Splatoon actually looks like a pretty interesting idea too. Something I want to try out.

As for other stuff, Horizon 2 is looking good, but my faith in that series has been shaken, so although I'm certainly getting it and will probably enjoy it, I'm still pretty cautious about it. I'm really interested in The Crew as well, but I've reason to be sceptical about that too now since they revealed that's going to be stuffed with microtransactions too. And they didn't really show anything new this year either. We don't really know anything more than we did a year ago.

Apart from that, for me it's just a bunch of "maybes". Maybe the new Crackdown will be something to look forward too. Maybe that Phantom Dust might be interesting and different. Maybe DriveClub will be more entertaining to play than it seems right now. Maybe if I can get over my aversion to shooters I can find some fun in Far Cry and Sunset Overdrive. Maybe Assassin's Creed has changed enough to make me not fall asleep within seconds of playing it myself. Maybe I'll crack Dark Souls and fall in love with it like everyone else before Bloodborne comes out. Maybe I'll be able to get along with The Witcher 3 better than I have with the other games in the series. Maybe that new Platinum game on XB1 will be good. I mean, I'm pretty confident it will be, it's Platinum, but right now we know nothing at all about it, other than it doesn't seem to look like a Platinum game. So yeah, a lot of things that were pretty impressive, but not much that actually made me feel like I'm sure to have a good time with these new consoles in the years to come, apart from the Wii U.

Although, that said, there were a few indies that looked really good. No Man's Sky has the potential to be utterly mind-blowing. And there were a few others that seemed like they might be worth paying attention to as well. But as cool as they are, indies can't carry an entire platform for me.

[dezm0nd]

Bayonetta for Wii U comes as a digital download code when you buy Bayonetta 2. Also, Bowsers fists come out of the portals, if you want them too...

[ratsoalbion]

I've loved my Wii U from day one (a few weeks after launch in my case) and there have been plenty enough reasons to own one for at least a year in my book, but there's no doubt that with the improvements Nintendo have made to the firmware and features, as well as the increasingly desirable software library I absolutely would not be without one now.

There are lots of things I like about each of my three current gen machines (and the PC for that matter), but the Wii U is the one that makes me smile the most.

Ultimately it's the Wii U that needs the most help right now so it's really gratifying to hear so many people saying that they're now interested post-E3, and I hope that it can ride this wave of good feeling that started to gather momentum with Mario Kart 8.

[hazeredmist]

Here here! I wanted a Wii U before E3 and that's only intensified now. It's going to happen!

E3 wasn't so fantastic for the Vita though. Some are putting a positive spin on it (see http://thevitalounge.net/sony-is-quietl ... doning-it/ ) but I do hope bigger budget productions aren't dead on the system, much as I don't mind an increased focus on indie gaming and ports which have really elevated it lately in my eyes.

[Todinho]

Well Ubisoft could probably had handled the controversy better and prioritized this stuff especially since it's related to co-op and you not having that is kinda of silly,but it was interesting to see the other side especially with many people(in my perception at least) wanting Ubisofts head for this.Other than that though it was a pretty good E3 with BloodBorne beign announced and looking good,with ton of extra MGSV info and footage and of course with Nintendo finnaly selling me a WiiU with Bayonetta 1&2 and Smash Bros but I didnt see many interesting indie games other than the 1920's cartoon inspired one did anyone see more interesting indies anywhere?

And yeah the vita is pretty much dead when it comes to western support I think it will only be focused by Japanese and indie developers and they didnt have many japanese games this year other than Nintendo and a few others.
By the way im really disapointed that the SUDA game Lily Bergamo became Let it Die especially because it seems to be a online free-to play multiplayer,I guess I'll just have to wait for Short Peace to come out...

[Scrustle]

Yeah, I was really disappointed to hear about what happened to Lily too. Let it Die doesn't look good at all to me.

And Short Peace is already out isn't it? I'm pretty sure it is in the UK at least. I've heard it's not that good though. Or rather, the game portion isn't that good.

[Todinho]

hum...I have a US psn so aparently it isnt out over there yet because I searched and didnt find anything and I think I saw a trailer of it this E3 but yeah kinda of weird it being out at the Uk already and not US.