What Won E3 2015? | GameSided Roundtable

Greetings! This is our weekly GameSided Roundtable feature, where our writers converge to provide their opinions, wishes, statements or critical thought on one general topic centered around video games. Sometimes it can be funny, sometimes it can be serious. Contemporary, classic; we hope to cover a wide variety of things in this segment as a group. If you wish to submit an idea for a GameSided Roundtable discussion topic, you can leave the editor an email at: daniel.george@fansided.com. We’ll totally give you (and your Twitter account, if applicable) a shoutout!

This week’s GameSided Roundtable topic: “What game, company, group or idea was your E3 2015 winner?”

Martin Benn (Twitter)

There is no question the idea of E3 2015 was Horizon: Zero Dawn. It was not the story of the show, that was Shenmue III. It was not the game of the show, somehow that was Final Fantasy VII in 2015. It was the idea of the show. The AAA space of gaming has been so devoid of creativity in the 3rd person action game space, and most indie games just do not have the budget to get in on the genre. This really only leaves the industry with two true 3rd person action games. Uncharted and Tomb Raider are great, but next year will be year 9 since Uncharted first released in 2007.

Almost a decade of these games being the pre-eminent 3rd person action games. The only other series I can think of that is a big 3rd person action game, and not a 100 hour RPG, is the return of Deus Ex, which was also welcome. I’m not really talking about RPGs when I say this, nor should they be confused with horror titles, of which there are not many outside of Resident Evil that are third person as well, nor to be confused with stealth games like Splinter Cell or Metal Gear Solid neither. I had high hopes for games like The Order: 1886, but the titles that look to be big budget 3rd person titles has been waning since the PS3/360/Wii era and Call of Duty maximized the first person shooter as the genre of the industry. To see a big budget new 3rd person action game concept from one of the companies that was making first person shooter clones, Guerilla Games makes Killzone games, was refreshing. I can only hope Guerilla Games can live up to the hype. Hopefully, if they do, a boom in the creativity in the space grows up a bit more.

P.S. It also has a female lead. Which, alongside Mirror’s Edge: Catalyst and Tomb Raider, now makes 3 female leads in games all at the same time from big publishers. That does not happen in gaming very often. The last time I can pinpoint so many female leads was at the start of last generation as Perfect Dark Zero, Beyond Good & Evil and Metroid Prime were hot. (Hopefully, no one ends up like Beyond Good & Evil) Aa such, I’m going to not-so-stealthily make this my second best idea of the show.

Keith Myers (Twitter)

PlayStation Vue.

This announcement caught me completely off guard, but it is a game changer for an entire industry. Cable TV services are outdated and way too expensive. With high speed internet in almost every house in the country now, it was only a matter of time before someone stood up to the cable giants. Sony’s service, which will allow you to pick channels a la carte instead of forcing you to pay for bulk packages, has the potential to completely change the way the industry works.

Yes, I know it is a gaming convention and Playstation Vue has nothing to do with gaming. There was just nothing else discussed this week that has same level of potential impact. Well, except for maybe Star Wars: Battlefront. That looked pretty damn amazing.

Erik Sugay

The three games I bought a PS3 for were Kingdom Hearts 3, the Final Fantasy 7 Remake, and The Last Guardian. Of course, none of those actually came out for the console, and only the latter was ever really announced to release for it, but rumors of the first two were more than enough to make me shell out the cash for the system. I was certainly surprised that all three made appearances during E3 2015.

As The Last Guardian’s development issues led to it to being constantly questioned as vaporware, and Final Fantasy 7 is a game I’ve already played, Kingdom Hearts 3 was the only game I absolutely needed to see at this year’s expo. I grew up with the Kingdom Hearts series and I swear by it. While I’ve enjoyed the remakes and the many, many, many handheld non-mainline entries – Birth By Sleep is probably my favorite of the entire series – seeing more of the next “true” sequel, no matter how little, was all I really needed to avoid complete and utter disappointment in the entirety of E3, regardless of what else was announced.

Luckily for me, Square Enix had my back. The Kingdom Hearts 3 trailer offered a fantastic look at some beautiful and ridiculous combat (tea cups!) and one of the game’s unexpected new worlds, Tangled. (I cried. Probably more than I should have.) The company even hosted game director Tetsuya Nomura and co-director Tai Yasue to answer some questions about the highly anticipated game.

The little information regarding Kingdom Hearts 3 was the best thing to come out of E3. Even if the game still doesn’t have a release date yet. SIGH.

Next: More Horizon Love & A Heartwarming Platformer