Hello and welcome to blog number 5, part 2 of 3 for my E3 reactions, so here’s 5 games that showed up in the various conferences that are being remade, rebooted or remastered and my thoughts on each of them.
Final Fantasy VII
The pinnacle of the Final Fantasy franchise, or so we have been told for many years. FF7 is the one that always gets a mention or name dropped in best ever games lists by long-time fans of the franchise. It’s a brave man that agreed to do a remake of such a highly regarded game. Caught between a rock (change anything and hard core fans could freak out) and a hard place (the old game design not being suitable to newer generations of Gamers) is a problem I’m glad I don’t need to be the one to solve because frankly there is no solution I can see unless a miracle takes place. Final Fantasy is a series I have no connection with, it’s completely bamboozling array of titles making it impossible for me to wrap my head around anything that’s going on. Maybe I’ll do a blog post with the help of a friend and get him to explain FF games to me. Maybe 7 is the one to try, but I’ll wait until the fans have tried the game and given it the thumbs up. Why tarnish the reputation of such a well-loved game by playing an inferior version when I can let you all do it for me?
Ghost Recon: Wildlands
One of the more unexpected reboots to be announced and a genuine surprise when it was shown. GR: WL is looking like a very good game in concept and design. The freedom of choice in how to tackle your objective, night time stealth, all guns blazing through the front door or smash and grab tactics. My only criticism of this game is that it does seem to be following the same trend as several other games are heading down like The Division or games like Fallout and Far Cry have already done. Open world, do whatever you want and play the missions how you want is a growing theme of games this generation and I just fear that one of these games is going to be the tipping point where the backlash starts. I don’t think it will be this game, I mean it could be more than innovative enough to distinguish itself from the competition and avoid being lost in the crowd, or maybe it will who knows. It looks good but that isn’t always enough.
Doom
The long awaited return of this famous and all important franchise was as spectacular, gory and violent as anyone could have dreamed. It looked fantastic and they are certainly aiming to reclaim the title of the pinnacle 1st person shooter game at the first attempt. It’s bold, it’s ambitious and the game demo certainly reflected that. I loved the graphics and the fast paced nature of the gameplay, plus that is certainly how to do chainsaws right in games. It also came with a level creator tool and mod support for consoles which is a first as far as I know. It was fantastic and I can’t wait for more.
The Rare Collection
Nowhere near as exciting as the announcement of Rare’s new IP and welcome return to the land of gaming free of the damned Kinect. The collection certainly isn’t anything to be sniffed at, Rare is a fantastic developer and the back catalogue of games on offer are certainly not terrible by any stretch of the imagination. I don’t have much else to say other than if it is reasonably well priced then it will be an absolute bargain for hours and hours, especially for gamers who haven’t played these games before.
Star Fox: Zero Exactly what everyone expected pretty much, except this isn’t the 90’s anymore which is basically the criticism I’ve heard of Star Fox: Zero boiled down to a nutshell. I think it sounds interesting, I don’t think the art style showed well at the digital event, it does look dated and a little jarring but there is still time for a bit of extra polish if Nintendo act fast. The aiming mechanic sounds like a very innovative way of using the game pad that makes it more than just an inventory screen or map to look at. There are multiple vehicles and transformations at the touch of a single button. I think it could be very interesting, not quite a system seller but it’s a step in the right direction from Nintendo and the WiiU.
So that was my thoughts on 5 remakes, reboots and remasters shown or announced at E3, of course there were many more but if I tried to cover them all this blog would be a thousand years long. So you can thank me for cutting it down a bit for you here in the comments, on Facebook or on Twitter @adamthomas1994. Remember to like or subscribe to outoflives.net, the Out of Lives Facebook page or the birthplace of all this content the IGN UK Facebook Group.
Thanks again for reading my blog and keep an eye out for part 3, the final part, of my E3 reactions on Thursday.
Duckhunt!
