Xavier Woods' E3 Blog: Day Three

Xavier Woods' E3 Blog: Day Three

E3 - Day three coverage

Today I finally arrived at E3 in Los Angeles, California. No more watching streams to find out what is going on and then relaying the info to you guys. Today was full of first-hand experiences that blew my mind. As I walked in to the convention center I saw a huge VR setup for “The Walking Dead.” As I reached my hands out for it, I was pulled away because we had to get to an appointment. We then walked past a setup for “Black Ops” and I again reached for what I knew would satisfy my video game craving, but I was again thwarted and yanked away from the goodness that sat in front of me.

We then proceeded to get my badge and begin the day. The first area that we went to see was 2K. As we walked into a small room that had an 80-inch TV and was full of chairs, a man began to tell us about one of their newest games that was set to release this coming winter…

“Battleborn”

Created by 2K and Gearbox (“Borderlands”), this game puts a brand-new spin on multiplayer action and co-op play. These fine companies have taken elements from all of our favorite types of things and smashed them together into one incredible gaming experience. This is a first-person/RPG/shooter/MOBA type of game. Confusing, right? Elements from all of these types of games have been used here and have been used well. The story is that there is only one star left in the galaxy and the only living life forms left have all gathered around it. There is an evil force trying to destroy that star and a few heroes band together to try and stop this from happening. And when I say a few heroes, I mean 25 of them. Yes, there are 25 playable characters that will be selectable at launch. There is a character for every type of player. You wanna be a tank and just take damage for your team? Go ahead. You wanna run around quickly? Go ahead. You wanna snipe enemies from across the stage just because? Go ahead! On top of all of this, there is support for 5-player co-op which is niiiiiiiice. The online play will be teams of 5-on-5 that run around attempting to get the best of each other. Once we were about to play, someone came up and was like “hey do you wanna play with Verne Troyer?” My reply was obviously “Of course I do!” So he came up and played with us which was pretty cool. Overall, the game is really fun to play with other people, and I imagine that the solo gameplay will be really fun as well.

UpUpDownDown on YouTube |  WWE 2K on YouTube

We then made our way over to the next game …

“XCOM 2”

Entering the room in order to watch the gameplay trailer was still an unreal experience for me. The trailer showed the first fight of the game, and did so in a beautiful way. Rather than simply attacking when the user clicks, the attack occurs in some sort of cinematic short. This is cool because it adds an element to the game that keeps players wanting to come back and see what things do in different situations. The environments are very interactive with walls breaking down and cars exploding when they are attacked. Also, since it’s a PC game, it will be open to mods. Modding in this game should be interesting because now there is much more to work with than there was with the first “XCOM.” I’m excited to see what the world thinks up!

From 2K we went over to Warner Brothers …

Xavier's Day One Blog |  Xavier's Day Two Blog

“Mad Max” 

A room was set up in order to show a video just like the other games, but inside this room there were screens with the game ready to play. The man at the front of the room explained that there were two demos we could play. One that was on foot and one that was in a vehicle. Both are necessary in the game, but since the world of Mad Max is super reliant on vehicles, I went with that one. This is a huge, open-world game with different kinds of missions and things to accomplish all over the map. The main objective is to destroy the main villain’s power over the area. This is done by blowing up his camps across the land. In the vehicle demo, I learned to ram another vehicle head-on and with the side of my car, used my harpoon to put another guy out of a moving vehicle, and shot fire out from both sides of my car. The cars can also be upgraded and customized which adds another element to the game. You don’t want too much armor (heavy), cause then the vehicle moves too slow, but if you don’t have enough armor then you're very vulnerable. Make the greatest vehicle of destruction for your play style and then get to work!

“Lego Universe”

This game was cute and funny, as is the case with any of the Lego games. The interesting thing about this one is that it’s a mashup of a ton of different types of games, cartoons, and pop-culture icons. You start off with Batman, Gandalf, and Wyldstyle (“The Lego Movie”). But the only way to use these characters is to place them on a platform that is supplied when buying the same. It’s almost got an “Amiibo” feel to it. The platform can fit seven different figures. Once a figure is placed onto the platform, then that character appears in the game and is playable. This feature allows for more complex puzzles that can only be solved by moving the figures around on the platform. The mix of real-life and video game world problem-solving makes for a super interesting, interactive game. Side note: I had Batman driving the DeLorean at one point. That should be enough …

After experiencing these games first-hand, I got to interview people who worked on “Mad Max,” “XCOM 2,” and “Battleborn.” All of the interviews were really cool and will be available on the UpUpDownDown YouTube channel fairly soon. We then made our way over to hang with some friends that I have at Giant Bomb. As we were hanging out, I decided that it was a good idea for me to be on their show. So I jumped on for the last bit of it and ended up having a blast. All in all, I would say that it was a hell of a day! Tomorrow we check out Nintendo, Twitch, and Kinda Funny. Time to sleep, running on fumes at this point. All of this stuff will be on my YouTube gaming channel, UpUpDownDown, so check it out and let your thoughts be heard in the comments!

WWE Shows Latest Results

View all Shows