This is a script for my youtube video, available below.

Hello, I’m Kinglink and I’m back from my first day of E3 2019.

 

E3 has been crazy, I’ve dived in head first, and got to see quite a few things on day one, as well as set up a few things for the future. But the good news is my day was packed. Just to give you an idea of how I view these games, I won’t try to be harsh on games. Almost everything here is very early, alpha, pre-alpha and more. So I’ll talk about some complaints but really, this is a hype event, and let’s give companies the benefit of the doubt when possible.

There’s a ton here, so I’ll just start, and talk about the games in the order I saw them. Let’s begin with the game I rushed over to, so I could see it first.

Doom Eternal

So yes, I, like almost everyone, am a big fan of Doom, and I’ll be honest, the Doom trailer at Bethesda’s E3 Press conferences left me worried. It felt sporatic, spastic, and just overall confusing, and animation heavy. Very Animation heavy.

But I still wanted to see how it would feel. The fact is, I think Doom’s alive and well, though dear god, I don’t think they could have added more mechanics. Doom in 2016 was extremely arcadey, but now, it’s grown. You can destroy a Mancubus’ canons. The Arcanotron’s cannon can be destroyed, and when you do this the enemies change attack patterns. And, dear god, the glory kills are the most violent things I’ve seen. This is reaching Mortal Kombat 11’s level of violence, probably a little less visceral, but this game is like a 9.8 out of 10. It is intense.

The controls are complex as well, there are new climbing mechanics that I’m not completely sold on, as well as a way to do mid-air parkour bouncing off pipes in the wall. There’s a ton of additional functions. You can, as always, use melee as a glory kill that’s fine, but now there’s a super move apparently on top of that (That’s what I saw, don’t know where the gauge is) There’s a flame thrower if you want more armor by light guys on fire. There’s chainsaw for ammo. It’s… honestly, it is controls overload but I think over time the game will feel better.

There’s even a 1-up that just revives the marine when he dies. That’s… insane the amount of content there is in just one game.

The storytelling is good too, at the beginning of the demo, the Doom marine marches into a bunker and everyone reacts in awe or fear. They back out of his way and he just drags someone by keycard on someone’s lanyard to a scanner.

Monster Hunter World Iceborne

This game is great looking but also a little cute. I haven’t played the first one yet, but this one looks just as good, though the visuals feel like they have taken another step up. The snow looks incredible.

I played in a party of four and we had to take down a strange beast, but the fight was incredible. I used a sword and shield befitting the name Kinglink. And my party and I took down the enemy. We even cut off the enemy’s tail and I was able to loot it before continuing with the battle. Even when the character slides down a hill in the snow I was having a blast, and it felt new.

My personal favorite thing is that my helper character, the Felyne, if I am even saying that close to correct, actually had a little snowboard? Was the stats for it good? Did it help? Did I even do it right? Who cares, it’s a snowboard.

All in all, this does feel like a nice way to deliver even more Monster Hunter World, and I enjoyed my time with my party taking down the enemy. As soon as I get a new computer up and running I might have to tackle the original game.

Dragon Quest Builder 2

So if you haven’t played the original Dragon Quest Builders, it’s kind of like if Minecraft met Dragon Quest. You have a dragon quest story, but instead of focusing on fighting and adventuring your character is a Builder, and you build objects and expand the world.

If you have played Dragon Quest Builders, well you’re going to be right at home here. To be honest, we’re seeing almost the same game here. It is a sequel after all, though I’ll be honest, I played for a bit and a number of times the game made me wait til NPCs did something simple. I ended up taking off after a bit.

It’s not a horrible experience. The first game was rather fun, and the game’s world is more interesting. My character was partied up with someone and the combat is fun and exciting Even the townsfolk seems to work with the player but overall while this felt good, it didn’t translate well to a demo in my opinion especially the slower moments.

But it does remain “Minecraft meets Dragon Quest” which is why I picked up the first one, and I’ll probably grab this one too. Honestly, the first game is one I keep asking “Why isn’t this on steam” but what do I know, I’m just a simple reviewer.

Judgment

OMG, I’m such a Yakuza fanboy, and I kept calling this game Yakuza: Judgment, I still do. But really this is a new game from the studio Ryu go Gotoku, which I’m sure I said wrong. The same studio who does Yakuza, in the same town as Yakuza, and apparently some Yakuza clan does appear according to the team. But it’s just called Judgment.

I actually snuck in and played this twice. The first time I played a bizarre board game, and instantly saw the roots of the studio… You have this ultra-stylized world where you roll dice and have to lock pick, safe crack, and more. It’s … bizarre, but that’s what this game is about. Though I’m not completely sold on it, it still shows this studio hasn’t forgotten how to stop being serious for a moment.

Then I Came back and I played the second time, checking out the story and god, it’s so good. You have our main character who is working with another detective, tracking a third detective, he winds up in a random fight, which works really well, and then dukes it out. The story feels good, it’s like an old detective serial, but sadly I didn’t get a ton of time to play. The look is great, the gameplay does feel like Yakuza, and this is really good. It is coming out in 2 weeks on PS4.

Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020

This is Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games, and I wasn’t sure about this one. I played this game because it took up the most space of the Sega booth, but after playing it (on the big screen I might add). I get it. It’s like Wii sports, but with Sonic and Mario instead of Mii. That’s how I see it.

They have five games available in the demo, I only played Karate, Skateboarding, Hurdles, and Archery, there was also Surfing available but a huge list of games in addition.

Karate was great, it’s a rock paper scissors idea, with punches, kicks, blocking and grapples, but really solid and abides by Olympics rules focused on scoring, as well as kicking people out of the arena. The guy showing me the game said you’ll have proper tournaments similar to the Olympics, rather than the one-shots that the game had in demo mode.

Skateboarding, I’ll admit, I wanted to love it, and it’s funny to see Bowser grinding a halfpipe, but I didn’t fully get it. I just want another Tony Hawk, that’s not this, but it’s a fun little game. Hurdles was crazy. I chose Sonic for that because of course. You had to punch to jump and shake the controller to run. I’m glad I wasn’t videotaped, it could be taken out of context easily.

Finally, Archery was solid, I love Archery because the wind and other variables make archery games interesting and it was the same here. According to the guy leading the demo you can use two controllers and have to pull back the bow, it was extremely fun. This feels a little above Wii Sports, but probably is more aimed towards that idea, than a deep game, but it certainly would work great as a party game.

Darksiders Genesis

This is…. Strange, I don’t think I’ll have footage, so I’ll try to describe. This is kind of like Diablo in the Darksiders world but with fewer enemies and more focused on guns. It’s an interesting idea, the level design is really good, and I really like the Darksiders series, but this is NOT a main series Darksider game as I know it. This is something different and I wonder if fans are ready for this.

That being said, this wasn’t my favorite game, I enjoyed my time with the demo but this is another demo I cut short, and while the level design is outstanding and there’s a number of interesting little areas, I’m not sure I really liked this one.

The player keeps going behind the camera area and to places where the player can’t be seen, and overall… I think this is going to need more time in the oven, I saw a 2019 release date on it and to me, that’s too soon for some of the issues I saw. I don’t want to see Darksiders have issues as a franchise because I’m a fan and it’s an interesting concept, but Genesis didn’t excite me that much.

Zombie Army 4 Dead War

It’s Left 4 Dead 3! Ok, I guess it’s not, but it certainly sounds like it. We have four characters in Co-op playing and fighting their way through hundreds of Nazi zombies. Ok, Nazi Zombies are different. The demo I played started off with a siege, where a train smashes into a hideout we were in and wave and wave came out after us.

Then the zombies were beaten back over time, even using a chain gun, bombs and mines. The players then explore the train yard and before long it was time to go, but even though I’m not a huge Zombie fan…. I found this to be very good. I am not a huge fan of co-op games, but this one is fun.

A big focus in the game is on traps that are already part of the level. There might be electrified floors or an awesome airplane propeller that sucked up all the enemies in an area. It’s a strange weird trap, but if there’s a ton of these unique traps, that’ll make this even better.

Also if your character officially dies, he actually rises as a zombie, so your friend has to kill your player character as a zombie. That’s just a very cool little feature.

This is clearly still based off Sniper Elite and you still have sniper elite guns here but it works. There was a slow-motion kill which was interesting but both players in our two-person group saw the kill it’s …. I think it’s strange.

Also during the train siege, there felt like there were friendlies fighting alongside us, and that’s a great feeling for a major siege. I do want to keep an eye on this one, a question will be how hard it is to find a party or drop in or drop out, but it also was enjoyable.

Sniper Elite VR

For our final game of the first day, we have one of the most visceral, yes I said that about Doom, but I’m saying it again because Sniper Elite VR is amazing. This is an all-new campaign based around Sniper Elite universe in Italy (with only Nazis again). You’re playing yourself rather than Karl and… honestly, it’s crazy good.

There are so many little things I could talk about. You are able to move forward, and when you press forward, you move in the direction your body is facing, not some forward vector of your body. You can just keep turning in a circle, rather than using the joystick to strafe. You can peek around corners, and using the PSVR and the Aim controller, you feel like you’re holding a real weapon in your hands at times. I spent at least 30 seconds looking at it and spinning it around.

VR is always going to feel like a gimmick to the uninitiated and since my last experience was probably a year ago, it definitely does but in this case, it’s not a bad gimmick. You have to look through the scope, you have to lean around corners. This is a game that I played sitting down, probably a good thing, but can be played standing up and according to the devs, you can crouch and the game changes the hitbox correctly. This is a VERY early Pre-alpha build according to them (Thanks Rebellion for letting me be one of the first) but I’ve never played anything like this.

Though, I do have to say this. This game may be dangerous. For how absolutely amazing this game was, this is would be the exact game people would imagine when people talk about murder simulators. I love the experience, I think this is one of the best VR games, and it really isn’t teaching much but giving players a fun experience. But I also see a moral outrage coming.

Still Sniper Elite is just very rewarding, I played on Sniper Elite and I don’t know if the difficulty was toned down or the ability to pop out and shoot was that much easier in VR, but I beat the game on my second attempt at the difficulty. Though the bullet cam is SO much worse in VR. It’s not done in the same way but still… I reacted a few times when I saw the kill. So bloody but…. It was only Nazis…

Press Conferences

That is everything I saw on Day One but since we have time, let’s go back a couple of days, and talk quickly about the previous two days and the press conferences. They were mostly good in my opinion, there are trailers for games I wanted and even though not everything was for me, that’s the point of these things. I don’t grade them, because that’s kind of dumb, but overall they were entertaining.

I will call out Bethesda though. If you want to see something awkward, that’s the one to watch. If you didn’t see it, it was awkward for a lot of reasons, like they only showed the first row of people clapping and seemed to be piping in noise, there was a guy screaming, and the fact is Fallout 76… they went all in trying to recover the goodwill and it didn’t work and set a very odd tone. I mean their first song was “When I say jump, you say how high.” For a studio that just spent 3 minutes telling us that “They listen”, that’s the song. Jesus.

The other thing I noticed is that everyone is doing a Subscription model. Ugh, welcome to the Netflix of gaming. I get it but this is Phase 3 where everyone has their own service now, I think Microsoft is spending entirely too much right now to get people in the door, they’re in the honeymoon period which means you should probably play it, it’s a buck right now. It’s a great deal but watch in 12 months it’s going to look a lot different. Google Stadia’s subscription I’m unsure of, that’s probably not going to work, but I do think Stadia will do well with people who don’t want to buy new hardware or consoles but not for the people watching these videos I bet, we all like to play games locally. Ubi’s at 15 bucks for their service which sounds like it’s mostly their games and that’s a ton though it links with Stadia so… who knows.

I just wanted to say that. Overall I’ve had a great first day on E3, I do have a few more things planned, I think I’ll be spending much of tomorrow at Nintendo with Pokemon and more, and maybe try to find my way over to Xbox, and then Thursday I have even more big games to see, we’ll talk more about that then.

I hope you have enjoyed this, and if you want to see more consider subscribing. I will be back with even more from the show tomorrow.

Until then, I’m Kinglink and thanks for watching