E3 2019: Your Verdicts

All the pre-E3 shows are done. What did you think of them? Here are my verdicts:

EA: 4/10.

The 30-minute-per-game format was an epic failure. Only six games, some of which felt too stretched out, and the waiting between games was unacceptable. Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order looked promising. Apex Legends Season 2 looked like nice improvements. Battlefield V was maps, maps, and more maps. FIFA's Volta looked fun, but the rest was just talking and talking about incremental improvements - and Rio Ferdinand. Urgh. Madden? More talking about incremental improvements. The Sims 4: Island Living looked like a solid bunch of content, but it was not the big finish the show needed. And Greg, please stop shouting. Seriously. Only credit I can give was for the focus on actual gameplay instead of bullshit trailers. Mixed bag of mixed bags, and overstayed its welcome.

Xbox: 7/10.

Generally solid show. Lots of games to show, yet nicely paced and not overstuffed. Highlights were Jedi Fallen Order, Cyberpunk 2077, Ori and the Will of the Wisps, Psychonauts 2, Flight Simulator, Elden Ring (From Software + George R.R. Martin collab), Gears of War 5 and Phantasy Star Online 2. The one big announcement was Project Scarlett next-gen console, and that Halo Infinite will be its launch title. Not sure if Halo is the same console seller it used to be, but cool nonetheless. Game Pass on PC looks very tempting. Most of the games were already announced or released, and would have liked more actual gameplay. Keanu Reeves in Cyberpunk 2077 made my day.

Bethesda: 4/10.

A right mess of a show. Seems like they tried the slow start, big finish again like last year, but they stretched out the start too long and didn't have enough finish. Too many mobile games. It's like Bethesda are turning to NetEase West or something. Fallout 76 getting NPCs, dialogue trees and a Battle Royale mode. Yup, GOTY right there. Rage 2 getting stuff. Wolfenstein: Youngblood got a release date. Shinji Mikami's Ghostwire Tokyo and Arkane's Deathloop did look interesting, but not enough to go on. Finally, Doom Eternal was... ...Doom, which was great. What else is there to say? Wished that could have been half the show instead.

PC Gaming Show: 7/10.

Solid, solid show. So many good stuff. Highlights were Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines 2, Chivalry 2, Age of Wonders: Planetfall, Planet Zoo, Shenmue III, Vermintide 2 Versus update, Borderlands 3, Maneater and Baldur's Gate III. Lots of sweet looking indies laced in there as well. Pacing was decent; gave all the games enough time to shine without slowing down the show. Strong start, then tailed off a bit. Baldur's Gate III wasn't the big finish I expected, but still appreciated the guys coming to talk about it. Tim Sweeney showing up to a hail of boos would have been the icing on the cake, but I guess we can't have everything. Still, thoroughly enjoyed it.

Ubisoft: 3/10.

The one-game show. Watch Dogs Legion looked crazy ambitious... ...and that was about it. Roller Champions looked alright. Gods & Monsters was too little of a tease, and what was shown looked like a Breath of the Wild rip-off. The rest of the show was just updates to their live service games, Ghost Recon Breakpoint trailers, a spin-off from a Rainbow Six Siege game mode, cringey Just Dance musical number, and a Tom Clancy mobile game with Sam Fisher. There it is, your new Splinter Cell game. Worth every penny of the $15/month subscription service, that. The least said about the sitcom and the movie, the better. When your best moment was Jon Bernthal's dog, you know you've f***ed up.

Square Enix: 8/10.

Now this is how you do an E3 show. Final Fantasy VII Remake looked great, and they showed Tifa at her best. Outriders looked intriguing, but nothing else to go on. Marvel's Avengers closed the show strongly with great-looking gameplay. Still not sure about it being a live service game, but the promise of more Avengers like Hank Pym tantalises. There was also a slew of other announcements and trailers, most of them RPGs - if Square Enix doubles down as the "RPG Company," I will not complain one bit. Final Fantasy XIV expansion and The Last Remnant and Final Fantasy VIII remasters round out a thoroughly great show. Well done Square Enix.

Nintendo: 8/10.

A delightful mix of everything. Lots of games to show, decent amount of gameplay, and even a few pleasant surprises. Highlights were Dragon Quest XI, Luigi's Mansion 3, Link's Awakening remake, Fire Emblem: Three Houses, No More Heroes III and Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3. Animal Crossing getting delayed was a bit of a downer, but the game looked nice. Astral Chain looked properly sweet. Smash Ultimate also got cool Dragon Quest XI and Banjo Kazooie crossovers. A Fire Emblem-style Dark Crystal game and somehow cramming The Witcher 3 into the Switch were pleasant surprises. The big finish with the Breath of the Wild sequel sealed the deal. Doug Bowser's E3 debut was appropriately cute. Awesome show.

• EA - Star Wars/10
• Ubisoft - Watch Dogs/10
• Square - Tifa/10
• Microsoft - Tim/10
• Nintendo - Astral Zelda/10
• Bethesda - Ghostwire Deathloop/10
• PC - pushes up glasses/10

MS: 6/10

Beth: 3/10

PC: 6/10

Ubi: 3/10

EA: 1/10

SE: 8/10

Nin: 10/10

Best game shown.

MS: 6/10

Beth 1.5/10 (the audience MUST work there or something NOT COOL)

PC: 4/10

UBi: 5/10

SE: 7/10

Nintendo: 8/10

It was not the best E-3 I was VERY irritated with Sony being too lazy to even make a video. Fanboys will act like that is AMAZING, but that is just crap and they know it. If they would have made a Sony Direct and show Ratchet and Clank they could have EASILY beat most of these presentations. BOO!

Best Games: Doom / Phantasy Star Online 2 / Minecraft Dungeons / Tales of Arise

Best Conference: Microsoft

Best Add-on: Borderlands 2 DLC / Fallout 76 BR + Human NPCs

Best Available Today: Contra Collection

Best Surprise: BotW 2 / Ikumi Nakamura

Best Trailer: Ori and the Will of the Wisps / Elden Ring

MS: 8/10

Beth: 4/10

PC: 5/10

Ubi: 2/10

EA: 2/10

SE: 7/10

Nin: 9/10

Nintendo really knocked it out of the park this year.

Microsoft, Square-Enix, and Nintendo were each an 8/10 for me.

Bethesda was probably a 5/10. They had some cool looking stuff but man that crowd was so obviously planted and just flat out weird and terrible.

EA was probably a 5 as well. They had some good stuff but really the only thing I can remember right now is Jedi Fallen Order.

Haven’t watched Ubisoft or the PC ones fully yet.

It's a toss-up, to me, whether Square-Enix won E3 or if Nintendo did. They both had so much genuinely good things to show! The crowd was bonkers for SEs reveals and that is a gauge that always speaks for itself. Nintendo is demonstrating an uncanny ability to leverage the Japanese market and those developer relationships to bring some wonderful surprises to compliment their first party bombshells. Both get a 9.

PC Gaming Show: This show is getting better every year. Yeah, it's not the most well polished show but good gaming gods did they have some good stuff to show! They also interface the best of any show this year with the developers who make the games. If you skipped the PC Gaming Show this year, you missed something delightful. It's the show I would say is the most self-aware and delivers for its fans.

Ubisoft didn't suck this year! On top of finding a groove with the Watchdogs franchise that is genuinely fresh, they had the freaking Punisher to pop the cork on a new Ghost Recon. Such a nice touch! I also dont think they are given enough credit for their community outreach but I suspect that they are headed in a good direction long after the lights fade on this years E3 with that. Just the fact that they are giving AI teammates again shows that Ubisoft is listening and I always encourage that. Bonus point for the Ice-T "Dont be a toxic dick" video. Highly recommend looking that up if you want a laugh =)

Microsofts show was too much of a mixed bag to score it highly. The high points were obviously the Psychonauts 2 reveal, Halo Infinite, and Keanu Reeves. The Scarlet reveal was tone-deaf considering what was revealed about the PS5 already (if anyone from MS is reading this, I understand putting together a polished video takes weeks if not months to produce, but you could have kept Phil on stage to follow that up or just go ahead and scrap the video altogether to give a more intimate perception because first impressions matter). It wasn't a bad reveal, but it was pretty meh-tastic when you consider the build up to this. The bad points were all of the prerendered trailers for hotly anticipated games. That conference was an awfully big swing for a grounder to first base.

Devolver Digitals show was great fun but the games weren't as memorable as last years lineup. Great show, though, and always the most fun to watch at E3.

EA: boring.

The true winner of E3 was the new Terminator movie. For something we all know next to nothing about, its product placement was undeniable. Their marketing department hung over E3 almost as much a phantom menace as Sony.

Keanu Reeves was cool

Ask the question once E3 is over. It is still too premature to ask.

E3 2019 CGI trailers edition give me gameplay you cowards.

MS: Phil Spencer has taken the "just show the game" -feedback too far. An endless string of trailers is tiring. It also makes the entire idea of a conference pointless. The Scarlett reveal was incredibly disapointing. Wtf were they thinking? Sony had given them an open goal and somehow MS managed to lose anyway.

4/10

Ubisoft: Good start with the AC music medley and then an impressive showing of WatchDogs 3 (but there is no way in hell the dialogue can work that well in the actual game). Then the conference died as they announced one update after another for their service games. Gods an monsters looked intriguing, even though the trailer was very short.

5/10

We are rating the conferences and all conferences are over noob.

Nintendo kicked ass this year, as expected.

Microsoft: Cyberpunk 2077 is highlight

Bethesda: Doom is highlight of this terrible terrible show

Ubisoft: 0/10. nothing good

Square enix: Dying light 2 is highlight.

Nintendo: Donot care/10

Basically to sum up this E3. all cinematic, no gameplay. nothing happened.

Not sure about scores, but it was a solid E3 overall. Nintendo was the standout for me, and liked what I saw from MS/Bethesda/Ubi (although they all should've just done a Direct-style presentation).

My three games of the show are the obvious ones... Shenmue 3, FF7 Remake and Zelda BotW 2.

Biggest disappointment is no Dino Crisis reboot announced.

Nintendo just announcing a botw sequel is exciting as hell.

FF7 Remake content was excellent as well.

• MS-6/10
• Square Enix-8/10
• Bethesda-3/10
• Nintendo 9/10
• Ubisoft 5/10
• EA 6/10

They are talking about everyone's conference. Basically, E3 is over.

I enjoyed wachting the PC gaming and MS conferences, I barely make it through press conferences so the fact that I watched them entirely means a lot. Just solid shows with lots of great games and announcements.

EA was alright man, I wanted to see Battlefield and Star Wars and got what I wanted... Heck they showed gameplay.

Which I feel this E3 was lacking most of all: you wanna show a fancy trailer? Fine, but at least show us some gameplay afterwards, show us what the game will actually be like.

Avengers? Hell yeah, could be fun... Alas no gameplay

Gods and monsters? Nailed the concept, but what is the actual game like.

This is what I like say about nintendo treehouse or EA play: they at least focus on what the game is actually like.

Square-Enix "won" without announcing any new games and that is like really really sad. I'm disappointed overall because all the companies seemed to just want a passing grade instead of an excellent note.

I was ready to hand Square the crown for best E3. Then Nintendo came and just punched me in the mouth and took it. Overall, I think this year's E3 has been the best in recent times even with the lackluster showings from some of the big 3rd party publishers. MS, SE and especially Nintendo pulled more than their weight.

Game of show: Watch Dogs 3 - what they showed looked great. It was also one of the only games to get proper gameplay footage so I guess it also wins by default.

Biggest disappointment: Microsoft. Without competition from Sony this year they had the ultimate opportunity to knock it out of the park but ended up falling over.

MS: 4/10

Great pacing... But no gameplay and way too much shit to wade through to get to the decent games. Scarlett reveal was pointless.

Beth: 2/10

Why bother?

Ubisoft: 6/10

Watch Dogs looks great. Some variety. Points lost because no splinter Cell

EA: 2/10

I mean, they showed some stuff... I guess?

SE: 5/10

FFVII looks great. Fairly well presented

Nintendo: 6/10

Some great games, and a lot covered in a short amount of time. Not interested in most of the games, and somehow still no Metroid Prime.

I feel Square Enix won too.

MS won the 4th show in a row

Watchdogs best trailer/demo

Cyberpunk/Keanu Reeves biggest Holy shit moment

No wonder Sony pulled out... They knew all the developers where holding back for next E3 when they launch the new consoles and that nothing new or exciting would be shown.

Keanu stole the show for a game that that was revealed with gameplay a year ago... Let that sink in.

Yea this E3 was a joke, and you're probably right. Sony's partnership with 3rd party devs gave them advance warning about what would be shown at this year's E3 and that's probably why they pulled out.

@son-goku7523: I'm more than certain that was the case.

Also people saying Watch Dogs was the star of the show?... Like really?... Once the novelty of playing anyone fades away, it doesn't look like anything special at all.

I guess people rate things differently but I'm sorry having Keanu in a game that looks like its going to be the next AAAA game is a f***ing cherry on the cake, nothing came close to that this E3 which is how I rate E3's if you don't make me thing OMG NO WAY then you didn't win a thing and this E3 that was the only moment I felt that way.

It at least showed gameplay, which can't be said for alot of games shown.

Who care's though?... It looks like a game that will get AA and after a week from release no one will even remember or care that it exists.

About seeing gameplay? Lot's of people. A shitty cinematic trailer tells us nothing. The fact you're sitting here, having examined the gameplay to tell us your opinion of it being shit is testament to why we should care.

Although I do absolutely agree about... well... pretty much all Ubisoft open-world games being shit.

Gimmi Rayman, not this garbage.

@uninspiredcup: Also to me for a company to DEFINITELY win E3 you need to show a game that has the potential to be the next AAAA, and no one did that. I am a gamer and I am looking for next gaming experience that will make me fall in love with gaming again and the only moment this E3 that gave me that was Keanu being revealed as a character for Cyberpunk a game from a developer that came off of a game that is arguably won of the greatest games ever made.

A sequal to another Zelda doesn't really interest me, the whole reason why Breath of the Wild got AAAA is because it was so different to other Zeldas and everything else was just meh same old same old meh with a few nice indies here any there that I will play for a bit and completely forget exist after several weeks or months at best.

Keanu in Cyberpunk = E3 2019.

This is of course just my take.

kinda boring/10

EA - 3/10

Devolver - 4/10

Ubisoft -4/10

Microsoft - 6/10

Bethesda - 6/10

Square Enix - 8/10

Nintendo - 8/10

Overall, okay E3 this year.

I'll just score the ones I watched.

Microsoft: 6/10

Ubisoft: 3/10

Bethesda: 4/10

Square-Enix: 8/10

Nintendo: 9/10

Nintendo did no disappoint, clearly won E3 at least for me. Square-Enix was a neat surprise to me. Bethesda was not interesting and even less so with the (clearly) paid actors cheering like hell. Ubisoft was just a steaming pile of hot garbage (bring back prince of persia you cowards!). Microsoft was not as bad as the Sony fanboys make them out to be but their conference clearly lacked something.

I still prefer Nintendo's format for the whole presentation honestly. They put up the direct without obnoxious fans cheering like crazy at all the announcements, really helps you sink in every huge reveals. And then for the rest they hold those treehouse gameplays and interview the devs while demonstrating the games. No crowd, no fanfare. Just gameplay and info. Kinda makes you think that if E3 goes down under Nintendo could easily just host their own version of the event by renting some place and do what they did this year.

The Epic Store Show was pretty good if you look past the store exclusivity, loved this little meme that showed up in my youtube recommendations

@madrocketeer: 'Marvel's Avengers closed the show strongly with great-looking gameplay'.

What? They literally failed to show any game play for that or explain what the game actually is...

I don't see Elden Ring or Gears 5 as highlights when there was nothing substantial shown. Sorry!

Nintendo won easily. They showed actual gameplay and had actual release dates, not to mention all the great games shown.

Square is second for me. Everyone else was bleh.

This E3 showed me that I only need PC and Switch going forward. With Xbox putting stuff on PC and with not caring about the few exclusives PlayStation does have, I have no plans to get either next-gen system. I would sooner upgrade my PC.

I thought I saw what was clearly gameplay demo, just without HUD and stuff. IGN have since confirmed after watching an extended demo that much of the A-Day sequence was in-game.

Elden Ring was a nice final confirmation of a rumour that was blowing my mind for weeks. From "You Died" Software and the GRRM Reaper - it's just too perfect. And Gears 5 did announce release date, Escape mode, and Terminator crossover. Pretty significant announcements.

Those were cutscenes, not official game play. I take a lot of what IGN says with a grain of salt.

Elden didn't really confirm anything besides the name. We knew about the collaboration for months.

The release date for Gears was nice but then again its only a few months away and there's still no game play.

Sony: 10/10. They won E3.

Microsoft: 5/10. Gears/Halo/LEGO Forza and some multiplats.

Nintendo: 0/10. No games. Boring. Massive game drought continues.

For me it was:

1. Nintendo Direct
2. PC-Gaming Show
3. MS Conference
4. Squenix Show
5. Devolver Direct
6. Ubisoft Conference
7. EA Play
8. Bethesda Conference

Keep in mind Nintendo also does Directs throughout the year AND has Treehouse where they show off tons of gameplay of announced games... Oh AND they had really fun tournaments. Think about that for a moment. Their competitors really need to step up their game >__> I have watched a lot of Pokemon, Astral Chain, Animal Crossing and Daemon X Machina gameplay on Treehouse. Where was your gameplay MS? And the next days they will show more, including a Nindie day. I think they have far and away the best E3 showing in total, but I was just ranking the conferences and the like.

And only looking at their Direct it had surprises, had gameplay, had games that looked better than before, had no fake audience. They didn't show everything I wanted them to, and they had some weird bad games in there. But so did everyone else. I loved the Keanu Reeves moment, the Phantasy Star Online 2 surprise and the FF7 gameplay demo, but if we look at the shows as a whole I easily enjoyed Nintendo's Direct the most. They didn't have much of a sales pitch or diversity pitch, they didn't blast world premier through your speakers, there was a sincerity and fun attitude and anticipation that I didn't realize I was missing at E3 until they showed.

Baldurs F***** Gate 3!!!

That alone makes it one of the best E3 in ages!

Would rate Nintendo, MS and the pc show a solid 7-8/10 with Nintendo as a winner!

MS should have showed more gameplay and less cgi, but at least they focused on game coming out the next year and we got a lot of surprising release dates!

How does Keanu Reeves enhance the game in any way? Yes, I'm a gamer. That's probably why I don't give a **** about some celebrity showing up in games after getting a sack full of money. Seriously, why is the game better with Keanu Reeves? I guess Geralt should have been played by Tom Hanks.

What?...

Are you retarded?... Seriously Geralt was voiced by a actor not some random guy they found in the office.

Take the whole "celebrity" out of you clearly anti mind set, actors and voice actors are payed lots and hired for the roles because they DO enhance the games especially story driven games like Cyberpunk.

That's like saying how is a famous symphony orchestra going to enhance the music in a game!... Honestly one of the most ignorant things I have read here in a while.

Everyone who didn't come 10/10

When everyone came 7/10

EA - 2 (DNQ)

Xbox - 9 (If Xbox lover, it won)

Bethesda - 6 (WTF happened)

Ubisoft - 7 (Just not as good as last year)

Square Enix - 8 (Runner Up)

Nintendo - 8 (If Nintendo lover, it won)

Devolver - 4 (games were better than last year, but skits were lamer)

^-Xbox, Nintendo, and Square did amazing things, anyone claiming they didn't, are fucking lunatics. All 3 had huge games in Halo, BotW 2 and FFVIIR.

If you wanted more depth from Xbox, they had Inside Xbox, and TONS of video on YouTube from interviews with Phil, developers and plenty of gameplay. I still can't comprehend the amount of "Xbox" things I've got since E3 and can barely keep track of everything, so here is my main list for the winner of E3:

Some Stats for Xbox:

-Announced new hardware with date and key information and launching with Halo (doesn't get better than that)

-Announced the elite controller that every Xbox fan wanted

-PC game pass that fans really wanted and added to Ultimate for free and $1 upfront

-Talked xCloud and on floor showing it for first time

Their 1st party alone was on point: (I.E. Xbox Game Studios has no games)

Halo Infinite
Gears 5
Ori and the Will of the Wisps
Flight Simulator
Bleeding Edge
Outer Worlds
Psychonauts
Age of Empires 2 DE
Battletoads
Minecraft Dungeons
Wasteland 3

Plus Updates: (some might have been on Inside Xbox)

State of Decay 2 Heartland
Forza Horizon 4 Legos
Gears Pop
Halo Ship in Sea of Thieves which already got the Anniversary Update
Add 31 games to Backwards Compatibility, 8 of which were OG Xbox (games are hot fire)

Added a ton of new Game Pass games:

Shenmue 1 + 2
Hollow Knight Voidheart
Borderlands Handsome
Metro Exodus (has the other 2)
Arkham Knight
Guacamelle 2
Turing Test
Steamworld Dig 2
Thimbleweed Park
Riverbond
Everspace
Moonlighter
Bridge Constructor Portal
Silence
Old Man's Journey
Momodora
Braid
Metal Slug X
Neon Chrome
Riptide Renegade
Lichtspeer
Brothers
Banner Saga Two

Just before E3: Void Bastards, The Surge, War Groove, Wolfenstein 2, etc.

List of games shown on stage coming to Game Pass, pretty sure this is all of them that I haven't mentioned, and sure all are day and date:

After Party
Blair Witch
BlazingChrome
Creatures in the Well
Dead Static Drive
Felix the Reaper
The Good Life
Ikenfall
Killer Queen Black
Nightcall
Phoenix Point
Secret Neighbor
Spiritfarer
Star Renegade
Supermark Shriek
Totem Teller
Unto the End
Way to the Woods

Other notable happenings:

-Moment/Person/Game of the Night Cyberpunk 2077/Keanu Reeves

-After several years Phantasy Star Online 2 coming West just to Xbox

-A George RR Martin FromSoftware game

-Best Borderland 3 trailer

-Tales of Arise unveil, with best girl

-Blair Witch looks so amazing from the Layers of People studio

-Best looking Lego game I've seen

-They had Vampire Masquerade Bloodlines 2 on Inside Xbox