E3 Games on Show

With mere days now to go until the Electronic Entertainment Expo opens its doors I thought that now would be the best time for me to give you my views on what you should expect to see. It’s time to get incredibly excited about the show, exceptionally optimistic about what might be announced and irrationally happy with all the rumours about to head our way.

Most of the big announcements will involve multiplatform games that tend to be the best of the bunch from each years releases. It’s the big Call of Duty offerings, the horror of Resident Evil and the colourful arcade games that really perform year to year but also those with the biggest possible market tend to get the biggest announcements.

So without further delay let’s run through what games you can no doubt expect to hear about over the next week or so. I haven’t bothered listing their perspective formats as I’m feeling lazy but I’m sure if you care about them you know whether you can play them or not.

Call of Duty: Black Ops II

We all know that it doesn’t really matter how much content a Call of Duty game provided it will still sell millions of copies worldwide and be received with open arms to all the publications that Activision have given some money to. As I’m sure you are aware I am no fan of the series itself, at least I wasn’t, but then Black Ops II came along and the trailer has actually got me excited to see how this really pans out. It might even be my first Call of Duty purchase since Call of Duty 4.

I think it might be the sheer volume of new idea that developer Treyarch are bringing to the table or their inclusion of horses but I’m genuinely excited to give this one a go. DICE took quite a proportion of players with the release of Battlefield 3 last year and I expect Treyarch to pull out all the stops to claw those players back. It’ll be an interesting year for war games to be sure and one can expect all the bells and whistles of the previous games with as much content stored on their disks as possible.

Assassin's Creed III

Assassin's Creed III brings us out of the Renaissance and into the American Revolution and it’s certainly looking rather lovely. Ubisoft have kept the details of the game fairly minimal but the teasers have given us fan boys more than enough to get our blood pumping. I love that each numbered outing provided new protagonists, characters, locations and abilities and number three won’t change that. Te frontier is a new character in itself and the thought of swinging through trees, hunting animals and climbing cliffs should be as entertaining as ever. The new location also looks to provide a more rounded game with more feature, actions and choices.

I haven’t found a fan of the series that isn’t excited about this third instalment and have even heard people saying that this outing could finally be the version to get them to pick up a copy and hop into the Animus for the first time. It’ll certainly be interesting to see how Ubisoft manage to grab the new players over the next few months and whether they can provide the details of the back-story without hours of cut scenes. The Assassins Creed story is as rich as any other and you could argue that there are many more twists and turns to come.

Halo 4

After months and months of drip feeding us information it’s about time 343 Industries revealed a bit more from their big Halo release. I would firmly place month that we might hear more about the campaign, maybe some new covenant variations and perhaps some more details on the new threat that the Master Chief has to deal with. I would be surprised though if the hugely speculated new race/enemies are revealed as this is probably the biggest talking point amongst fans.

In addition expect a lot of information on the multiplayer, dubbed Infinity with perhaps some information on 343’s version forge as well. The Spartan Ops coop stories that were announced a few weeks ago will no doubt show its face at some point but apart from telling us how great it will be I wouldn’t expect too much more of the story coming our way. Microsoft won’t pull any punches and has expressed their desire to push exclusives as much as possible in 2012. This is damn sure going to be the year of Halo, and getting 343’s efforts in front of everyone on the grandest stage of them all will be priority one.

Resident Evil 6

The announcement of Resident Evil 6 at the beginning of this year sucked the oxygen out of all the horror fans on the planet and showed what looked to be the most polished horror graphics we’ve ever seen. Capcom have been waiting for the right moment to drop Resident Evil 6 and now was definitely that moment. With horror games becoming more and more popular again – thank you Dead Space – it was only a matter of time before everyone’s favourite series got a respray.

For days following the initial trailer it was almost impossible to hear anyone talk about something else. I would expect a playable demo at E3 for all the writers to go furious with and the fact that all three main men will be returning shows the scope of what Capcom are hoping to do. The trailer looks fantastic and the information leaked so far has kept me wide eyed and bushy tailed about this one.

Lost Planet 3

Lost Planet 3 was a happy surprise when it was unveiled at Capcom’s Captivate event earlier this year. It’s not because it’s another sequel but more about the changes being made to the series. If the teaser is anything to go by than the franchise has come on leaps and bounds since the second instalment. It didn’t sell the number Capcom were hoping for and so they have taken to retooling the plot and characters to make the whole experience more engrossing.

Make no mistake, we’re still talking about giant mechs and icy tundra’s but the emphasis this time around is on the characters and the plot instead of the run and gun action. At E3 we can expect some information on the multiplayer as well as some in game footage.

Fable: The Journey

Peter Molyneux’s final project with Lionhead Studio is their strangest yet with the typical action adventure found in the Fable universe but this time being played out on Kinect. The Journey didn’t get the applause it was hoping to following it’s initial announcement as many people were worried that it would be a simple action game set on a pretty background.

Lionhead came back with some interest concepts of joining together magic and Peter stated several times that it’s not completely on the rails. In fact the premise looks quite interesting and there have even been rumours of multiplayer content and controller based play too as an alternative to using the Kinect functions.

The Last of Us

Developer Naughty Dog has already said that it has new stuff in the works for E3 2012, and with PlayStation's affinity for massive screens and awesome demos, the press conference sure seems like Joel and Ellie's next big outing. Of course the creators of Uncharted are all for big action setups and epic backdrops and I am sure we will find out more at the conference itself.

Again the rumour mill has been spinning ever since the initial announcement hit the web and we will no doubt get confirmation of some of these as the press conference goes on. Basically it’s time to strap yourselves in and await some sort of epic trailer that will allow us to know a little more on the characters and their story.

So those are just a few of the game definitely due to appear at E3 this year but of course there is plenty to be excited about as the biggest developers and the biggest franchises are all readying their arsenal of gaming goodness. It’s fair to say that something will be announced for the first time at E3 too (as it is a bit of a tradition) so I guess there will be plenty more to speak about when the expo ends in a few weeks time.