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E3 2017 Press Conferences, Part 1

Since I live in Europe, watching the E3 press conferences live is almost an impossibility. Staying up late wouldn't be so much of a problem, but having to get up early next day for my 9-to-5 job makes it very hard.

That's why I've been watching the recordings on YouTube. This also has a nice side effect: I can simply skip games which don't interest me. Let's jump right in!

I'm watching them in order, as they happened, beginning with EA. Thanks to the fast-forward feature I could basically skip about half of the 3-hour long press conference and "after show". I have zero interest in Fifa and Madden (which made up a sizeable chunk) and I also couldn't care less for Star Wars Battlefront and Battlefield. Yes, you can all hate me now, I simply don't like either of those franchises. That was another hour which I could skip, because the live gameplay of both games was FREAKIN' LONG.

The rest boiled down to Need for Speed: Payback and the very short teaser for Anthem. I do like racing games, so I was pretty interested in NfS (though I dislike what Criterion did with the series after they took over - with the all-drifting-around-corners-all-the-time style gameplay). The Michael Bay-esque 'splosions may be a bit much, but I'll still check out the game because it looked gorgeous!

Anthem only got a teaser in the EA press conference, which was about a minute long, but that was enough to get me hooked! More on that later...

The second press conference was Xbox and DAMN it was a good one! Props to you guys, your press conference took the crown the second time in a row at E3 (IMHO). Like I said, I'm really into racing games, so Forza 7 and the reveal of the Porsche 911 GT2 RS instantly hyped me up!

Metro Exodus was the next beautiful game. I've played the first Metro and I must say I didn't really understand the hype surrounding it, but Exodus looks like I may have to replay the earlier titles. And keep an eye on this one!

I'm really into hack'n'slash games, so Code Vein ("the anime Dark Souls" - PCGamer.com) is also on my list for Gamescom. Oh yeah - I forgot to mention, that I'm not only watching these to see the new games, I'm also making a list of the games I definitely wanna check out live, later in August at Gamescom. So after I've watched all press conferences I'll make a condensed list of all the games I'm mentioning right now.

The trailer for Tacoma didn't reveal much, except that the game plays on a space station. But, it reminded me a little bit about Soma (though I may be completely off). Definitely one for my list.

Next up was Crackdown 3. But not just Crackdown 3... There was also Terry Crews! That guy is one crazy mofo! The whole time I expected him to jump out from behind the curtains. A little disappoint that he didn't... But I got a little taste of the game at the 2015 Xbox Fanfest in Cologne and this trailer just made me want more. I'll need to buy the first 2 games until then, and play those, so I'll be ready for the third.

After that there was a huge mix of different indie games from Id@Xbox, but some of them got my attention, even if the teasers were only a few second long: Raiders, Observer, Strange Brigade and Shift.

Last but definitely not least was the real reveal of Anthem including some pretty nifty gameplay! As one of my friends put it: "it looks like Destiny on steroids". Well, it sure does. We only got to see some multi-player co-op (4 players forming apparently a full squad), but I really hope that the game won't be multiplayer-only. Looks like it could be fun in single player too.

Of course I also have to mention the "non-game" announcements, one of which was completely expected: Xbox (Project) Scorpio finally got a name and some juicy specs. "Xbox One X" - I guess this could've been named better, but what the heck. 4K and (supposedly) stable 60fps coming to consoles. The second big announcement was something nobody expected: original Xbox games are coming to the Xbox One - S and X. DAMN! Or as one of the attendees put it: "I LOVE YOU PHIL!". I was a PlayStation fanboy all my life, but Xbox makes it very hard not to love them. Sony, take note: PS1 and PS2 games need to be made compatible with the PS4. The processing power is definitely there!

On that note I'll wrap up this post. I'll keep watching the rest of the conferences and "reporting" on them in the coming days.

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