The Festival of Games

I actually had another post written up for this week, but I was utterly bored less than 20 minutes into Summer Game Fest that I decided to write about that instead.

Also, about 30 minutes before it started, I realised that it is Game and not Games. They have to call it that for legal reasons, because Games would imply the industry doesn't keep wrapping up the same ideas again and again.

I should preface this by saying I don't really enjoy these shows anymore. As a teenager I used to love watching E3, despite having a terrible internet connection. I still remember only being able to hear the Metroid Other M trailer because the picture cut out. If the picture hadn't cut out then maybe I wouldn't have wasted £40 on finding out what a terrible game that was.

In part I think that being in the industry broke me, but also so much of the stuff that gets show off is just the same thing. I rarely find anything that get shown off interesting, and when I do end up playing a game then I struggle to get into it. I basically just stick to Pokémon these days, and even then I complain because they are just phoning that in. I get it's hypocritical that I complain about all games being the same and then all I play is a series that has barely changed.

Summer Game Fest opened up with Street Fighter 6 with a character reveal. And the character they revealed was Guile. I've never played Street Fighter before, but I know who Guile and would have automatically assumed he'd be in it anyway. I also know that Guile has his own theme and they weren't playing that during the trailer so 0 points from me. Get your shit together, Capcom. 

Next up was a trailer that started with 3 logos, one being for 20th Century which immediately gave away it was some kind of movie tie-in, probably meaning it was something I wasn't going to be interested in.  Then everything was dark and "atmospheric" which put me off even more. I've never seen any of the Alien films, but I know an Alien when I see one, and my disinterest in that franchise sealed the deal of me giving no fucks.

Then was The Callisto Project. I was busy deliberately losing games in Pokémon Go Battle League so didn't really pay attention, given how I had no interest when this was previously shown off. Glen Schofield, the head of whatever studio that is making Callisto Project, then came out and thanked Geoff for all he's done for gaming. And I agree with Glen. Geoff's heart is in the right place, and he really does all he can to put gaming on a pedestal, and I wish that I was still as enthusiastic about games as he is, but there's so much shilling out.

The Game Awards is a lovely idea. But usually when you give a show a name, that name is not usually the third thing in the priority list. It shouldn't be about the world exclusives, or the guest presenters. It should be about the devs and the games they've made. And yes, it wouldn't be possible to celebrate the devs without some funding because welcome to capitalism, and it would be a killer blow to suddenly decide to cut down on world exclusives because the audience would disappear and capitalism doesn't like when it loses big numbers.

After that, then they said they were going to play through a level of Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2, which already came out in 2008 because my brother had the strategy guide for it (here's the strategy - you aim, and you shoot), so at this point I muted the stream.

A trailer was then shown which said it was a follow up to a game from 30 years ago. It kind of looked a bit like Flashback, so it wasn't that surprising when Flashback 2 popped up at the end. I've not played Flashback, but I did discuss it at length with a colleague once who was really excited when they did a HD remake a few years ago.

And then... another shooter. I hadn't had a nap yet, so now would probably have been a good time to have one. The name Witchfire doesn't really scream shooter, but hey, that's what they showed.

For how creative the industry is supposed to be, it can't half keep rehashing the same old shit. Your protagonist is a man. You walk slowly through a spaceship. Keep looking at this corridor, it's important (I bet it's not). I thought I recognised a voice, and then it was confirmed that it was indeed Troy Baker playing one of the characters in Fort Solis so we're now 7 for 7 on games I'm not going to play.

I stopped liking Troy when someone raised a legitimate criticism of a The Last of Us II and he got super defensive about it. Considering all the toxic discourse surrounding that game, you've decided to ignore the homophobic and transphobic crowd and strike back against someone who wasn't even being that mean? Get a grip.

Hey look, another game in space. Another corridor. Another gun. "Doesn't that look great?" Geoff says. The robot looked cool, I guess. Almost had me interested in Routine for a second.

Geoff then threw over to a location unfamiliar to gamers. The guy from Jumanji was shirtless in an empty gym to introduce a trailer for a movie, because this is Summer Movie Fest now. There's not even a tie-in game for Black Adam so who knows why this was here.

This was followed by an advert for another shooty-bang-bang - Outriders - but this one had some interesting looking characters and locations. Shame you have to play with other people, because they are the worst.

Nintendo decided to drop by with a short sizzle reel of games coming soon to Switch. When I say short, it almost looked like there's nothing coming to Switch.

Capitalism continued to reign with a bunch of humans getting turned into the Fall Guys beans which showed absolutely no gameplay. Geoff acted like there were some people in the trailer that I should recognise, but at this point he's lucky I know what a Fall Guys bean is.

The next game announcement had a shield get pieced together like it was something from Knack, but asking for Knack 3 is too much. Some mech came along to battle the devil monster from Ring Fit Adventure, but this wasn't Ring Fit Adventure since there wasn't an annoying voice telling me every 10 seconds that if I'm finding it difficult, I can change things from the menu. Anyway, they made it clear you can sign up to play a beta for Stormgate, which is also the first opportunity you'll have to see any actual gameplay. The little chat afterwards revealed it was an RTS. But apparently it's cheaper to make a CG trailer that does not represent the game than it is to capture footage.

Oh look, a game with sunlight. They do exist. Good job, Highwater.

Geoff mentioned that Replaced couldn't put together a trailer of their game because of the Ukraine war. Nothing stopping them making a CG trailer though. Bet you can put one of them together faster than writing an email. Probably cheaper, too.

Pound shop J Jonah Jameson was on a TV to introduce American Arcadia. Looks cool. That's it. Don't really know much else about it. If only there was a 2 hour event where we could see and learn more about games.

Next up was a sequel from the studio that made Goat Simulator. The happy human was there to put off the scent that this was Goat Simulator 3, although it was actually still a surprise when the title was revealed since I wasn't even aware it already had a sequel.

Midnight Suns was introduced saying that we were about to meet some new people joining the battle, but given the Street Fighter reveal earlier I was expecting one of the characters already shown on the screen to show up. Turns out that both Spider-Man and his nice black costumed friend are in it.

When talking about the Cuphead DLC, Geoff gushed about how people weren't going to believe how this looks. If I had to guess, it'd look a lot like Cuphead. Sure enough, it did.

Switch and PC owners were told to look out for Neon White - an anime game trying to hide the fact it's an anime game.

Geoff then introduced Midnight Fight Express, developed by a "single father", who has now brought some more people on to help out. Yeah, it's impressive that a single person has made it, but is the emphasis on him being a father supposed to evoke emotion? Is he an actual single father - does he not have a partner to raise his child with? Or is it what I think it is and it's a guy who actually has a family, and for some reason has decided to run with the whole being a dad thing. Suppose it's stuck though if I'm complaining about it.

Some lady who needs to get a new pair of jeans spoke about Warframe. I'm pretty sure that's already out though, so this is probably a patch. Which is what the lady there to talk about it should get for that hole in her jeans.

Now an anime game not trying to hide it's an anime game. I do like the art style of Starrail, but I never get invested in the characters, which is in part because the voice acting is atrocious. The men always sound bored, and the women are so high pitched that I'm surprised I can still hear them.

Zenless Zone Zero was the follow up from the same studio as Starrail. There's a wolf in this that furries are going to be salivating over already.

Then was some Turtles, but they're not the Teenage Mutant HERO Turtles like I grew up with on VHS in the hospital (I had one blood test, yet I remember watching a lot of Turtles in the hospital. I think my brain is hiding something from me. Maybe they were testing me to see why I hate everything.). If the single player is fun, I might actually get this. So 75 minutes in and there's a game I might actually play 75 minutes of mostly new IP, and the thing I am excited by most is an 80s show I grew up with in the 90s.

I was pretty sure I'd already seen the next trailer. Maybe it was at the State of Play, although I skipped through most of that in search of Ape Escape and left without being able to find it. So maybe I have seen Sniper People before. Maybe I haven't. If it was new, then it's not that new. Because I've definitely seen it before.

Sega then showed Civ Humankind. Except I can't play that, because if it is like Civ then it's going to be 3am before I know it.

On the screen behind Geoff came the logo for One Piece. Great, another IP I don't care about.

We were supposed to get an introduction to the voice cast for Soul Hackers 2, but they just sounded like generic anime voices and there wasn't any text on screen telling me who they were, so consider me non-introduced.

This was followed by some proper adverts, and not the pseudo-adverts that have Geoff inserted between them. I didn't pay attention to this bit.

Apparently I still wasn't paying attention when the next game got announced. Bet it was Knack 3. Or Popstar Maker. Shit. I missed the best bit. Nah, I caught the end of it. Can't remember what it was called, but I also didn't care.

I never finished Until Dawn, so I suspect if I got The Quarry that I probably wouldn't finish that either. I also spent all of my time in Until Dawn going "Hey, it's Agents of Shield guy" and "What's Camp Rock girl up to now?" so I suspect a similar thing would happen here.

To whoever made the Nightingale trailer - I respect that you showed off the plants just disappearing when they were picked up, because it will be incredibly accurate to how it happens in the game. But that's the kind of thing you don't show in a trailer, especially front and center. I get it, "show off the game, but not that bit!" is a confusing message that I'm sending. The rest of it looked good. But not that.

I like Saints Row. So this is the first game shown that I am actually going to play (sorry, Turtles, but I did say might). I already spend too long in the customiser, so it'll be about 3 hours before I actually get from the main menu and into the game.

Speaking of customisation, answer me this game devs. You make all these Warhammer games, and yet none of them are about painting minis. What's that about?

Next up another game that didn't really explain what it was. Layers of Fears is made in Unreal Engine 5 though. Unreal 5 guys! Did you know if you put a model of Link from Zelda in Unreal that it automatically makes it better than anything Nintendo ever produce? That's what YouTube tells me, anyway.

Then Gotham Knights. But not the TV show of the same name that has nothing to do with the game that was announced and in development first. Maybe one day WB and DC will be able to not cause a clusterfuck. They almost did it right with the Arrowverse.

On the subject of Arrowverse, the clone of Vandal Savage appeared to show some pictures from some Last of Us projects and decided to bring Troy Baker back on stage. Ashley Johnson was there to help soften the blow though.

And then came a trailer for The Last of Us Part I, which had already shown up on the internet earlier on thanks to the Playstation Store. When the rumours of a remake of the first game first appeared, I thought it was a dumb idea. Then I worked out that enough time had elapsed to match when Pokémon first got remakes so decided it was no longer dumb. Although FireRed and LeafGreen looked visually different (they had colour, for starters), and had the mechanics that Gen 2 and 3 brought. And while they say that Part I has improved mechanics, I can't see how it isn't just basically the same thing but in 4K. So I think it's dumb again.

And apparently that was it. Some of the indie games looked interesting, so presumably they will cross paths with me if they ever show up on Game Pass. The rest was just a usual disappointment of everything looking the same.