Best Waste of 90 minutes: Code Name: S.T.E.A.M.
I love Advance Wars. The strategy game franchise for Nintendo’s handheld devices is always a blast, so I was happy to attend the debut for developer Intelligent Systems’ new turn-based tactics project, Code Name: S.T.E.A.M.
Unfortunately, my happiness quickly turned into impatience as Nintendo kept us in the room for 90 minutes while focusing on very specific aspects of the gameplay.
I bet that I’m really going to like this when it hits my 3DS in 2015, but I’m not sure it’s a game that justifies occupying an hour and a half of the limited time we get at E3. — Jeffrey Grubb
The Biggest Whoops in a Video Game Story Headline in History: The Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times ran a story with the headline, “Nintendo’s white PlayStation 4 debuts.” Clearly, the copy editor in charge of that one came from another planet. — Dean Takahashi
Above: Whoops.
The Worst Experience with a Game That Is Probably Good Award: Evolve
GamesBeat staff writer and community manager Mike Minotti got some time with Evolve before I did, and he convinced me to get in line with him so that I could try it out. And I did, but I probably should have played with someone else.
Mike controlled the monster while I was stuck on a team with a bunch of strangers, and the five-minute match went like this: My team jogged around the level trying to find our opponent, but we never even saw him until after he was fully leveled up. At that point, the monster (a term you can use interchangeably for the creature or Mike) killed us almost instantly.
I get that everyone else is really loving Evolve, but I think I’ll need some more time with it before I get it. — Jeffrey Grubb
The ‘Is That Really Necessary?’ Award: Dead Island 2’s mo-cap cat
The developers behind Dead Island 2 claim that they are the first studio to ever motion-capture a cat for a video game (with some help from expert animal trainers). They call the cat Rick Fury, and his owner is Max, a nonplayable character who follows you around in his van. I thought it was a joke at first, but then they showed a picture of a cat in a mo-cap suit during the hands-off demo.
“It was a pain in the ass,” said our presenter, “But we totally think it’s worth it.” — Giancarlo Valdes
The ‘What Were We Thinking?’ Award: Ultra Street Fighter IV tournament
Publisher Capcom invited fellow GamesBeat writer Mike Minotti and me to participate in its Ultra Street Fighter IV press tournament at E3. But once the action started, we realized very quickly that we were outclassed. Apparently, “expert at fighting games” isn’t at the top of our requirements list at GamesBeat, and it showed.
Above: We were clearly out of our league.
Mike fell out of the tourney in the first round. I didn’t fare much better, advancing to round two before losing to the guy from Edge magazine who would go on to win the entire thing.
Perhaps the above Tweet and my response to it should’ve warned us that we were in the wrong place. — Dan “Shoe” Hsu