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| Seeing Salvador and friends again would be a great way to celebrate gaming's biggest week. |
A week before the convention officially begins June 13, news had already started trickling out Monday, and it hasn't stopped.
That said, let's waste no more time before my most-anticipated games of video game Christmas:
(For comparison's sake, here's last year's pre-show post; my coverage of 2015's press conferences; and my personal games of show.)
Honorable Mentions
Crackdown 3, Gears of War 4, Mighty No. 9 and Resident Evil 7
The proof will be in the pudding. E3 is not the pudding.
Star Wars: Battlefront DLC and Titanfall 2
Add a single-player campaign and we'll talk.
Metroid Prime 4 and/or Super Metroid 2
I still believe!
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I'd be thrilled to see any of these at E3. I'd bet on seeing none.
Left 4 Dead 3, PokéMMO, Pokémon Snap 2 and Portal 3
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Last year I wrote of a third Half-Life, "We're at 'Cubs win the World Series' levels of don't-hold-your-breath." Now I'd bet on the World Series.
Top 10
10. ReCore
Not much has changed for ReCore, Microsoft's exclusive post-apocalyptic girl-and-her-robot-dog game from the makers of Metroid Prime, since E3 2015. That includes my excitement for it amid a sea of dudes-shooting-stuff-alone games. Here's hoping we see gameplay and a 2016 release date Monday morning.
9. Lego Dimensions 2
Conversely, everything has changed for Lego Dimensions since last June, when I blew it off as another toy game that would knock my beloved amiibo off the shelves. I suppose that's still true, but Dimensions turned out to be the first game in its genre to do three critical things: make the physical portion fun and interesting, innovate on a gameplay level and include Back to the Future characters. Here's hoping the inevitable annual sequel lets me re-use last year's portal without re-using the same mechanics.
8. Horizon: Zero Dawn
Monday's delay dampened my enthusiasm for Guerilla's robot-dinosaur archery simulator just slightly; with a February release date, it's a lot less likely we'll see gameplay, and the fact that the delay came with an amazing trailer suggests the game might not be shown at all. I expect a brief teaser at Sony's conference Monday night but no big media blowout for Horizon until early next year.
7. Cuphead
I almost moved Cuphead into honorable mentions, but I can't deny, as familiar as I am with it from E3 2015 and a hands-on demo at PAX, that this is one of my most-anticipated games not just of the conference but of all time. Even as a co-op bullet-hell boss-fight extravaganza rather than a platformer, Cuphead can't be beat for beauty, potential and straight-up style. If it released during E3 - as I predicted last year - my June would be made.
6. Mass Effect: Andromeda
We still know basically nothing about this game other than it will have a big showing at EA's show-opening presser on Sunday, but, three years after we all got pissed at Starkid, I'm still anxious for another Mass Effect. With Star Wars back in a big way, this would be an excellent time for Bioware to dramatically reinvent what's always been an exceptional rip-off.
5. Watch Dogs 2
My best-case scenario for Watch Dogs is the Assassin's Creed model: an underwhelming freshman effort followed by a sophomore smash. (We'll overlook for now the subsequent years of mediocre sequels and potentially disastrous film adaptation.) Like Assassin's Creed, Watch Dogs has a killer premise - hackers fighting back against a near-future totalitarian regime - a gigantic budget and potential to spare. If Ubisoft sticks the landing, this is a game-of-the-year contender. Our first taste isn't far away: Wednesday morning.
4. Borderlands 3
Like Dishonored 2 last year, this is a shot in the dark, but an educated one: after Battleborn released this spring, Gearbox Software no longer has any games in development that we know of, and, with all due respect to Brothers in Arms and Duke Nukem, their next priority should be the next in their bestselling co-op shooter/RPG series. I suspect the powers that be know gamers have forgotten about the blah Pre-Sequel and will welcome the first true next-gen Borderlands with open, gun-zerking arms. (But please, no golden keys this time.)
3. The Legend of Zelda Wii U
Zelda, on the other hand, is the game I'm most certain we'll see a lot of at E3, and with good reason: Nintendo knows this is the game that will drive whatever remaining Wii U sales they're lucky enough to grab, and, with teases at two previous E3's and an announced 2016 release date, it's time to open the vault and show off what EAD has been working on since Skyward Sword. Good or bad, Zelda will be a huge topic of conversation after Nintendo's not-a-Direct presentation Tuesday.
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| Pretty. |
After underestimating how much I would dig seeing the sequel to my 2013 game of the year at last year's E3 (Rise of the Tomb Raider turned out to be pretty damn good, too), I won't make the same mistake with my favorite title of 2012. Dishonored is nearly everything I love about video games: clever mechanics, useful and realistic level design and emergent gameplay. If Dishonored 2 can nail the story as well, and early signs are promising, there's no reason it couldn't be my GOTY again. We'll know more after Bethesda rolls out the red carpet for Corvo and Emily on Sunday night.
1. Destiny: Rise of Iron
I need to write something about how obsessed I was with Destiny for about six months - seriously, it got bad for my life - but for now suffice it to say that, after hitting maximum level on all my characters and playing every strike and mission (some quests and exotics elude me, and I'll hit the year-one raids eventually), I'm salivating at the thought of fall's fourth expansion.
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| I'm not 100 percent sure what's going on here, but I want to help. |
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