E3 2012 was in all honesty lacking this year, why was this year’s expo so lackluster and who showed the most promise?

E3 2012: Year of the weak show

Many gamers can agree that this year’s Electronic Entertainment Expo was very weak, perhaps the weakest showing in recent memory.

I think the main reason for the lackluster show was because of the internet and the numerous videogame websites trying to do their jobs and get as much info to their readers as possible.

Let’s face it, just about anything and everything that could have a cool surprise or announcement was leaked months before the big event, causing people to wonder if there would be anything left for publishers to show off.

Information is becoming harder and harder to keep out of the reaches of the people and that very reason is why developers can’t keep a lot of their games a secret.

Last year’s E3 had a similar problem, all the leaks, rumors and forced early announcements caused some developers to awkwardly joke about their “worst kept secret.”

Worst developer/publisher of show

EA Games

EA Games is walking away with my ‘worst of’ this year, they honestly had the worst press conference out of Ubisoft, Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft.

They showed off nearly nothing that the gaming community couldn’t guess, more need for speed, yeah we kind of knew you would try that franchise again.

They really tried to sell the “new and improved” madden with talk of a new collision engine, like they always say when they talk about a new Madden game.

Sadly, depending on the gamer, they didn’t show NBA Live (formerly NBA Elite until EA cancelled the title).

Hell, even Peter Moore made a very small appearance during the show, he’s the guy EA was banking on to help boost their sports title and even he didn’t make a big deal about the new improvements.

Hopefully come next year EA will have something cool to announce and show off, because they do make other games besides sports and racing, no really they do honest.

Sad Second

Microsoft

Microsoft came in a very close second for the record, as an Xbox owner I felt that Microsoft failed me by showing nearly nothing but more stupid apps that I personally won’t use.

Best developer/publisher of show

Ubisoft

Ubisoft came out in full force and showed everyone why they are a force to be reckoned with; they showed title after title as if to send a message to us that they can make original IP games while continuing existing franchises.

Ubisoft more than made up for that awful Mr. Caffeinated guy with a um…sexier and more confident female host.

Actress and stand-up comedian Aisha Tyler (which many may know from the animated FX show ‘Archer’ as Lana Kane) was the kind of host I’m sure Ubisoft meant to have last year, she was fun, energetic, sounded excited and most importantly was funny at the right moments.

Then Ubisoft almost ruined their good start by introducing a co-host, Tobuscus, this guy wasn’t as bad as Mr. Caffeinated but damn was he highly unnecessary and unfunny, he was close to being an Mr.C and I hated nearly every moment he opened his mouth.

Speaking of highly unnecessary moments and people, who thought it was a good idea to open the show with Flo Rida? That was the most annoying and laughably bad moment in the whole show.

I was beginning to think Ubi was going to drop the ball this year but, once Flo Rida was done and I got over Tobuscus I found the show to be awesome, mainly thanks to the great games that were shown especially Watch Dogs.

Honorable Second

Sony

Sony came in a close second because they actually showed off games, you know Microsoft those things that got me to buy a Xbox 360 in the first place.

While I like what Quantic Dreams was doing with Beyond- Two Souls, the point that David Cage showed a cut scene and no gameplay puts a bad feeling in my gut.

The scene was kind of crappy too, nothing interesting happened and the dialog was pretty bad.

Most disappointing Show

Nintendo

Nintendo started off great, Mr. Miyamoto started the show off with some light humor and his carefree charm, while the augmented Pikmen was lame it was a short harmless, if not pointless, part of the show.

I’m giving Nintendo the ‘most disappointing’ because of the way they handled to Wii U during the whole week.

They gave the Wii U its own moment on Sunday, a day before Microsoft’s conference; I thought this was a smart move to get people hyped for a big announcement during their real conference later that week.

Instead of showing the actual system Nintendo took nearly an hour to talk about the Wii U GamePad, something they could have done during their normal conference show.

Even after that wasted opportunity Nintendo continued to make the same mistake again later that week, instead of making the Wii U look like a must have, they made it look like an updated Wii with an extra letter added on to make it seem like a new piece of tech.

No release date, no price announcement and ports of games that manage to look like the developers shoehorned the Wii U GamePad functions in.

Disappointing Second

Microsoft

I seriously can’t get over how lame and ho-hum Microsoft’s press conference was; yeah seeing Halo 4 gameplay was great and worth it but where was everything else? Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 looked as if the developers themselves have given up on the series, I love Call of Duty but man it’s starting to become crap.

Enough with the apps already, I want games with my system; I don’t give two craps about sports.

I don’t care if the 360 lives up to the ‘dude-bro D-bag’ reputation it’s been gaining for years but at least give some damn games to play, to hell with ESPN and Internet Explorer.

Best of the “Big 3”

Sony

Sony was the only one of the ‘big 3’ (Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft) who came out ready and confident in what they had to show.

Sony was giving gamers what they wanted; they showed off games for the PS3, they showed games for the Vita and they even made announcements for PlayStation Plus subscribers.

Sony focused on gamers, they even gave a quick jab towards their competitors by saying how gamers matter and even showed games for families while showing off games for teens and adults respectively.

Game of show

Watch Dogs

I know a bunch of people are going to say Beyond was their game of show but that thing had nothing on Ubisoft’s Watch Dogs.

Watch Dogs was a great surprise and had me more excited than Halo, Assassin’s Creed 3, and Splinter Cell: Blacklist and Beyond- Two Souls put together.

While I’m well aware the game was being played on a PC, the actual gameplay that was shown got me excited to want more of the game.

I want to see how this game will look and handle running on the Xbox 360 and PS3, this game will be closely watched by nearly everyone in the gaming community and for good reason.

Game of show 2

Assassin’s Creed 3

Another Ubisoft game that looks great, AC3 will finally move on from the Ezio story arc and focus on a new character named Conner, a half-British half-Native American fighting against the Templars during the American Revolution.

I’m not going to lie, I’m ecstatic that the protagonist will be Native American, even if he is only half.

The last Native protagonist I can remember was Domasi “Tommy” Tawodi from Prey.

Assassin’s Creed 3 promises to have a bigger world than any other AC games, plus you can fight wolves and bears, what’s not to love?

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