State of the Wood
There’s an old Pigs in Space that starts with the crew of the Swine Trek staring straight into the camera, until finally Captain Hogthrob breaks the silence by opining "oh, the endless sameness of eternal space." That’s just how I am about E3. At least most years we get Nintendo playing the part of the Swedish Chef and running in seemingly at random to spout a whole lot of nonsense; this year Nintendo decided, wisely for them but sadly for those of us who wanted something mildly amusing to happen, that they weren’t interested in going through the motions anymore, and we were left staring blankly at the dilapidated voodoo skeleton of what used to be E3, hoping uselessly for anything fun to happen.
You gotta figure Sony is hurting bad these days. They’ve been the uncontested market leader for as long as anybody can remember, but after Microsoft’s strong showing at this year’s expo, Sony may find themselves a distant runner-up in the field of hilarious press disasters. Is there one person anywhere in the world who doesn’t think the Xbox One is horribad? The timing was so perfect that I have to wonder if Snowden’s real target wasn’t Microsoft’s console division; it was like, what, a week between the announcement that the Xbone will have always-on cameras and microphones in your living room and a constant internet connection and the big reveal that MS has been deep in bed with the NSA helping them spy on us? Yeah, thanks but no thanks, Microsoft; I’ll pass on the option to pay $500 so you can install your telescreen in my house.
But what about the games? There were lots of new games on show at E3. Were any of those fun? Well, there were brand new entries in the Assassin’s Creed, Call of Duty, Arkham Asylzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Huh? Whoa, sorry about that. Long day, I guess. What was I talking about? Oh, right: I was just going to mention that Saints Row 4 showed at E3 this year, and it looked prezzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Hmm? Yeah, sorry. Seriously, there was absolutely nothing fun at E3. Lots of eight-hour movie games that are exactly the same as the eight-hour movie games you paid $60 for last year. Woo-eee. If I were forced to pick a "game of show," I’d have a really hard time not picking Ducktales Remastered, because we’re at the point in the evolution of gaming where a graphical revamp of a 25-year-old NES game based on a Disney cartoon looks way more fun than any of the pablum Ubi and EA are churning out. I mean, Watch Dogs? You guys really think that looks fun? Holy shit. It’s exactly the same as everything you’ve been playing since 2007, but 14% browner and with even longer movies. Oh boy oh boy oh boy yum yum yum yum!
The one thing I actually wanted to see at E3 this year — Monolith’s mysterious upcoming Xenowhatsit — was a complete bust. All they showed was a new trailer that’s even worse than the last trailer. Where the last one had some gameplay footage, this one is mostly footage of a cutscene involving a dude walking really slowly through a warehouse while what I can only assume passes for rap in Japan drones on in the background. I linked to it up there, but, really, don’t bother. It’s like forty seconds long and it sucks.
So all of these articles are required to end with a ridiculous "who won E3" bit where the author gives an imaginary internet award to the company that gave him the most freebies at the show. Did you go to E3? If not, then, congratulations, I say you won. You did something better with your time than attend this absurd sameness festival, even if it was just sitting around and jerking off to the truly bizarre quantity of hentai featuring Mega Man, the Animal Crossing Villager, and the Wii Fit Trainer that was somehow magically produced within 24 hours of the Smash Bros videos actually going live. If anything is faster than the speed of porn, I don’t know what it is.
