E3 2014: Three Gems to Watch

Each year at E3 we get some trailers of new games, and for the last couple of years we've gotten some really good surprises.  Not all of them are indie, but I think it would be hard to deny they are indie influenced games.  Last year we got to see Transistor for the first time, and Child of Light.  This year has the next crop of games to watch and keep interest about.  These are not the blockbusters that get put on billboards and have a mountain dew sponsorship.  These are the little gems that sometimes get lost in the cracks.

DISCLAIMER!
Unlike images, I can not download and host youtube videos to ensure that they last a long time.  If you come and read this many years after I post it, you may not see a trailer or video present.  It existed at one time and I'm sure you can find the video on Youtube or whatever neural network our new robot overlords have created to pacify our synapses while they siphon our energy into their Malto-regeno-cores.

Valiant Hearts

Child of Light was an unexpected jewel from such a large studio as Ubisoft.  This year they surprise us again with a team that uses Child of Light's game engine to spin a tale about soldiers and civilians during The Great War, known in the US as World War 1.  They are writing a pretty large check for this one; not financially, but emotionally.  Let's hope it lives up to what it could be.  It will be released on many platforms.

Ori and the Blind Forest

The makers of Ori: The Blind Forest each site the 16-bit era as their favorite.  One of the biggest influences from that time is Super Metroid.  Lots of western indie devs look to Super Metroid for inspiration(in Japan the games are not nearly as well liked and that's why we get actual Metroids made by non-Nintendo people).  In Ori, the team wanted to make a Super Metroid that had more challenge.  The emphasis on exploration is there, but they wanted to ramp things up to "Super Meatboy" like levels of difficulty.  The game also looks beautiful.  I'm all for Metroid clones as I believe Castlevania did not hit its peak until it became "Metroidvania" as they call it.  It will be released on PC and Xbox.

Titan Souls

While Legend of Zelda did not start the "boss as a puzzle" craze, it was the introduction of that gameplay for a lot of us.  So what if you bring the concepts of Shadow of the Colossus back home to 2D, overhead, Zelda-esque gameplay?  You might get Titan Souls.  Every Titan can be killed with just 1 well placed arrow shot, but figuring out how to make the Titan expose this spot is the whole trick to it.  Each Titan is a different challenge with unique movement, unique attacks, and unique surroundings.  Right now you can pretty much say "Take Shadow of the Colossus and (insert genre here" and I'll be a sucker for it.  Titan Souls was originally a game created in 72 hours at Ludum Dare Game Jam, and they continued working on it to make a commercial release with much more content.  It is coming to PS4, Vita, and PC.

Watch Dogs and Unbelief

Watch Dogs is one of those games.  One of the games that seems to push its genres in ways that breath new life into them, but almost seems too good to be real.  I had played a bit of Uncharted 1 but that did not prepare me for how awesome part 2 looked: and it lived up to its hype.  Last of Us seems to also push that boundry in a genre that is populated fully with half ass attempts.  Heavy Rain was just a bunch of quick time events with Resident Evil like world navigation.  Hell, Resident Evil 4 was just another Resident Evil.  Gears of War was just another shooter.  Somehow they all turned out to be paragons of their style.  I like to think that I have somewhat of a broad imagination, but several things have jaded my view of what is possible in games.  Let's start in the 90's.

I still have a box of mid to late 90's video game magazines, and let me tell you, if people think internet journalism is full of bullshit, then you have not read a 90's video game magazine.  I go back and read blatantly false reviews about games such as "Plumbers Don't Wear Ties" and good reviews on games advertised all over the magazine when the game is notorious for being horrible today.  So after being burned a few times, I have learned to be discerning with promises of new and innovative gameplay.

Next up on my train of "this has taught you to be a skeptic" is the 2000's MMORPG scene.  This is an era where they did developer videos that lied directly to your face.  The showed off things that never EVER made it into the actual game.  They pretty much promised everything and their sister if you buy the 60 dollar initial release.

"You going to have housing?"
"Fuck yea we are, the best most awesome player housing ever!  Just... not at release, but its coming"

"What about PVP?"
"the most amazing PVP battlegrounds you can think of, everything is destructable and you can build cities that are useful and different than everyone elses' cities... a few months after release"

"Can you fly?"
"Fuck yea you can fly!(you can't actually fly)"

So when I hear about a game with such ambition that it starts clicking on the "impossible" meter, I kind of ignore it.  For about a year I ignored Watch Dogs.  It sounded too awesome to be true.  Most companies can't get within sight of being on par with Grand Theft Auto, the king of open world games.  Then here comes Watch Dogs claiming to be like Grand Theft Auto but with A.I. driven NPC's and all that hacking and magic spell stuff.  I put it in the bin with all the other GTA-killer claimants.

Then I saw Sony's E3 conference when they showed off the game, and I was very surprised that everything appeared to work.  In video, non-pre-rendered video, in a demo that seemed to tie everything together.  How much was optimized script and how much is actual sandbox, I can't tell, but I definitely pulled the game out of the GTA clone bin and put it in the "maybe pretty awesome" bin(along with Destiny and Transistor).

I've played my share of Open World games.  Red Dead Redemption is sort of made by the same people as GTA, so I don't know if you will count that.  I also played through Infamous, and while it gave me the best feeling of super powers in a game of its type ever, it was a very basic "open world" game, and felt a lot like PS2 era GTA 3, with not many of the updates to the genre in the decade since.

Watch Dogs looks like it might push the envelope AND work as an actual game.

I'll put the E3 Demo video below so you can check it out if you have not.