The second day of E3 is over, and while it was a fun day, I still can’t shake the feeling this year was a bit of a dud. Aside from the fact that there were no real major announcements yesterday, there weren’t that many games on the floor that blew me away. Despite all that, the show was as bombastic as ever, and there was plenty of stuff to see and do

What E3 lacked in games it made up in showmanship. Numerous booths had all manner of giant statues and crazy picture opportunities that con goers could get in on. You’d never guess it’s a down year overall, and especially for some publishers like Sega, who has undergone a massive restructuring. Hopefully, things will turn around for them. They had some great games at their booth like Aliens: Colonial Marines and Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed which was kind of like a Sega-fied version of Diddy Kong Racing.

The Sony booth was pretty hopping as usual, with plenty of PS Vita games on display. Based on the fact that it had virtually no presence, it seems like they’ve pretty much given up on the Sony Move. There was a new God of War game, but I don’t think that game has the pull it used to have, as the lines for it weren’t as insane as they used to be. Though lots of Vita games were out on the floor, the only one that really stood out was Gravity Rush, a stylistic action game where you propel your character by literally changing the direction of gravity. Oh and there was a Hatsune Miku rhythm game on the floor! I never thought any of her games would come to the States!

Microsoft was still pushing the Kinect as hard as ever. There were plenty of games on the floor with lots of people flailing their arms about in the pursuit of fun. While it hasn’t gone the way of the Move, it’s definitely lost some of its wow factor. Last year there were entire crowds of people getting down to Dance Central, but this year the paid dancers had to practically beg people to go up on stage, which I did but only because they begged me. The other game they seem to be pushing is a little game you may of heard of called Halo 4, which looked more Halo-ey than ever. 

As far as I can tell from the show floor, Ubisoft won E3. And Assassin’s Creed III is the game of the show. It’s everything a great sequel should be—a game that takes the series in a new direction and makes it feel fresh again. It’s amazing how many sequels are more or less just more levels with a few gameplay twists. Also, Rayman gets another game! Rayman Legends is a direct sequel to Rayman: Origins and looks just as amazing. It’s wonderful to see Ubisoft showing so much attention to one of their best properties after neglecting it for so many years. Congratulations, Ubisoft, you’ve won E3 this year!

And that’s it for now! I’ll be checking out the Nintendo booth in more detail tomorrow for my final report.

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by Urian Brown