The Major Stuff of E3 2015: Bethesda, Microsoft and EA

Are you an American? Do you live in LA? Or wherever E3 is? No? 

Well, welcome to the masses, the gaming majority who have to rely on secondary judgement to get all the latest gaming gossip. 

And in some form of attempt to appear both credible and informative, here's the decent stuff found from various rummages around E3. All the good stuff, none of this unnecessary nonsense. 

Bethesda's Conference

The creators of many games of epic proportions decided, unlike many other firms, that they like money, so Bethesda decided to show us a cracking array of new games and smaller announcements.

Fallout 4 has seemed to have mashed up everything good off of Steam Greenlight over the past five years, despite the game being developed from around 2009. You know Rust? 7 Days to Die? Day Z? The Forest? Sir, You Are Being Hunted? Outlast? Nether? Well if you can recall one of these titles, chances are you'll know how mediocre they are; done with the best intentions and most likely never finished. Luckily enough, Fallout 4 seems to appropriately trample on all these games. You can customise guns, settlements, and your armour. And probably due to the extensive development period, you can also play as a woman! Take notes, Ubisoft. Plus, it'll actually get finished, before the end of this very year (the 10th of November, I believe). 

And they've even made a real Pip-Boy which you can put your phone in. I mean, the hype train has left the station. And in the best way possible, they even have a little iOS title, Fallout Shelter, which is free and available right noooooooooooooooooo-now. 

Doom looks pretty top; a fast paced, refreshingly simple shooter with a metric shite-ton of gore. Of course, because social commentators have the memory of a goldfish, Doom was now the cause of the good ol' video game violence debacle, because apparently Postal, GTA V and Hatred have faded into the past. It's like a simplified Wolfenstein, it's a game which is purely boiled down to shooting monsters. And com on, The New Order was already pretty simple, but now it's got demons instead of Nazis. 

Dishonored 2 looks equally grand. Play as Emily or Corvo. Either way, it looks like a sought-after exploration of Dishonored's world. I mean, the battle in the trailer had weird robots, new abilities and a cracking moving mansion thing. I personally never got around to finishing the first game, but the bits I did play were immensely enjoyable. 

And also there was like, an Elder Scrolls card game, (because Bethesda haven't heard of Hearthstone), and a bit more of an insight into Battlecry, their medieval Team Fortress 2 thingy. Looks alright, granted everyone will forget about them within 30 seconds because of the Fallout 4 info-dump, but they looked alright nonetheless. 

Microsoft's Glorified Powerpoint Thing

It seems Microsoft have also decided that they like money; backwards compatibility with the Xbox 360 guys. Pop in a 360 disc, and a download is triggered, just like a social justice warrior exposed to inequality. So now you can play all your 360 games in exactly the same way; apologies they're not accompanied by a higher frame-rate. And they're also quite limited at the moment. But, there's a new controller, so you can act all professional, with your interchangeable paddles and buttons which can be remapped. No quite up to the glorious PC master-race ideas of remapping, but not too far off. It's called the 'Elite' controller, by the way...

Although, Xbox 'Game Preview' is essentially their version of Steam's Early Access program. If they can monitor the system better than Early Access, and certainly better than their previous indie collection, then it should be a good idea.

In addition, remember the Kinect? Nope, neither does Microsoft apparently. Seriously, there wasn't a single mention of the device in the entire conference. It's a strange, but necessary, change of strategy from their previous conferences. And there was a refreshing lack of focus on exclusivity. 

Minecraft, rather than be cobbled in with the new indie games like Tacoma, Ion, Ashen and Cuphead, has now got its own little bit of the conference, with gimmicky holograms and stuff. I guess when you buy a company, you need to please investors, but there ain't much more one can do with a game as popular as Minecraft. 

Even after watching the entirety of the conference, I've still no idea what their 'Hololens' actually is. Is it VR? Is it some augmented reality thingy? Is it a hologram deal? Not a clue. In other news, the few remaining 12 year-olds who play Minecraft on a console all shriek in excitement simultaneously.

Let me fill you in with the new info of previously announced games, in a quick and snappy order:

• Halo 5, which is exactly what you'd expect.
• Fallout 4 again! With mods and shit! Hmmm, quite good I guess.
• Forza 6! And just as with every other Forza release, the conference momentarily turns into an advertisement for a particular car company, this year's manufacture being Ford, leading to a GT being lowered from the rafters in a fashioned which would make Cirque du Soleil a bit jealous. Oh yeah, it's out this September...
• Rainbow Six Siege! No idea why it's still being flaunted when some people are already playing the beta on PC.
• Rise of the Uncharted Tomb Raider! Nah, it looks good though.
• Fable Legends! (Honestly, I couldn't care less about this title, I've never been a fan, but let's gloss over that...) 
• Gears of War! Now in a remastered collection. In case you've accidentally got rid of your individual games.
• The Division, is anyone still caring about this?

Other properly new stuff, which is arguably less notable consisted of:

• Sea of Thieves, think Guns of Icarus without the airships. A pirate sandbox multiplayer game, which is all well and good, but more importantly, Rare isn't dead apparently...

• Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare 2. Jesus, really?
• The thankfully simply named Gears 4. Which looks just like Gears. If you're a fan, you can look forward to some more waist-high wall simulations in the near future. Oh wait, it's actually still got the 'of War' bit...
• Dark Souls 3, which has succumb to the dead horse method. I mean, what's the point, especially with the recent release of Bloodborne?
• Rare Replay, $30 for all your childhood nostalgia in one convenient package...

Not bad, certainly upped their game from last year. But still a bit shite. Who's money is still on Sony? The likes of Crackdown and Quantum Break were promised to be present at Gamescom...

EA's Thing Which People Showed Up To

Sports! New sports games! New! Innovative! Honestly! Trailers for NHL, NBA Live, FIFA and NFL 16, even though it's still 2015 but you know... You'll have to excuse my lack of focus on these titles, but what can you say about a game which could easily be rendered irrelevant by some DLC?

Star Wars: Battlefront got gameplay footage, and EA may not mess it up!  That being said, the game does look more and more like a properly done mod for Battlefield 4. Still excited for Battlefront? Well sorry to tell you, but you may want to simmer down a bit, and there's always the new expansion pack for The Old Republic, which is great if you're one of the few who are still into that game. And the lady who spoke during the Battlefront segment took an eternity to actually show us the game, leading me to scream at her through my laptop.

Need for Speed got a release date, trailer and a tiny bit of your modern in-engine gameplay business, or the 'emergency retort if our graphics look worse upon release' idea. That being said, the game, confusingly titled 'Need for Speed' without any numbers or subtitles, did look quite nice. Granted, it had a peculiar camera angle, but it promised to bring all the best elements of the franchise together, like the customisation of Underground and the world of Carbon. Unlike the aforementioned Battlefront, I'm cautiously optimistic...

Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare 2 announced, (already?). And besides, if you'd already watched the Microsoft conference, you'd already known of this game. And then you would've fallen asleep when you sensed the trailer. It is nice for a game to not take itself too seriously, but I'm still having trouble indulging EA when it comes to this title.

Mass Effect: Andromeda has graced our presence with a cinematic trailer, leaving the room appropriately excited. No gameplay, and no dates, but still, colour me happy.

What is it with card games this year? A new one, Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes is another one which is hurtling towards us very soon. 

Ah well, at least there's the new Mirror's Edge which is going under the moniker of Mirror's Edge: Catalyst. Which isn't actually a sequel. Oh. But, it's an open world, and it looks great. And we did all promise a grimacing Peter Moore that we'd buy it. So I guess we better keep our chins up and just get all hyped about it. 

Not too bad. I mean, the third party conferences are always notoriously meh-worthy, in this case with the exception of Bethesda. Microsoft were fairly strong this year, although Sony always seem to be able to match them somehow. 

So, hopefully before the wonderful event of E3 is over, a bit more info will be posted on this particular part of the internet. Be sure to check back and have a gander.