At the end of the day, E3 2012 did not live up to all the hype, all the media coverage and all the anticipation. It will not be a memorable event in the annals of video game history. It was an event that emphasized a lot of the problems in this generation of consoles and showed that the video game industry needs an injection of creativity and fast. My friend and coworker, who I chatted with throughout all the press conferences, summed up E3 2012 in one word, safe. A lot of the big games highlighted at E3 2012 were either sequels and/or reboots of established franchises. Some sequels such as Rayman Legends, Pikmin 3 and Tomb Raider are fine and reasonable, but sequels to God of War, Gears of War, Forza and Dead Space are all unneeded and cause for over saturation in the industry. With the huge development costs this generation and the evident fear of failure in this industry, publishers and many developers have lost their edge and it was shown at this year's E3. At the end of last generation, we got the some of the most original games of that generation such as God of War, Okami and Shadow of Colossus. At the end of this generation, we are going to get an onslaught of sequels and more of the same. The other big problem was the lack of focus from the console developers. Microsoft and Sony were the main offenders, but Nintendo is also at fault, which pushed a stupid Nintendo Video series on their 3DS Showcase. Gamers tune into E3 to see games, not applications and entertainment options. The fact that I wasted two minutes of my life listening to a Microsoft exec talk about and demo that the 360's Bing Search can now search by genre is ridiculous and unacceptable. Also the fact Sony did not mention the 25, yes I said 25, Vita games at their press conference to give more time to Wonderbook is beyond stupid and extremely infuriating. Save this stuff for other venues or have a whole other conference dedicated to these options like Nintendo did for the 3DS. Putting this stuff on these hugely important conference just causes things to drag and interest to plummet fast. If Microsoft, Sony or Nintendo want to be the talk of E3, they need to focus on the games, both retail and downloadable. My final problem with E3 2012 was the incredible lack of surprises. Most games were either announced or leaked before the show, so there was rarely anything unexpected. The only real surprises were Watch Dogs, which was amazing, and Nintendo Land, which was just okay at best. While did cheer when Splinter Cell: Blacklist was revealed at the Microsoft Conference, we all knew it was coming at some point. Video game developers and publishers need to learn that they need to guard these games close to their chest as the media today will snatch every rumour, every little slip up like vultures. We need more than two surprises at E3 for this event to be worth remembering.
Overall, I will have to say E3 2012 was the most disappointing E3 in a while. I am a little more underwhelmed this year than usual. It is because other than a select handful of games, which I will be highlight in my Top 5 or 10 (still haven't decided) Games of E3, no other game got me excited to play it. Nothing changed about a number of games I was already excited for like New Super Mario Bros. 2 and Transformers: Fall of Cybertron, my opinions fell on a few games that had weak showings this year such as Halo 4 and Resident Evil 6 and some even improved like Assassin's Creed III and The Last of Us. Did I enjoy most of time following E3 this year? Most certainly yes. Did I expect more than we got? Yes I did.
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