In the ashes of the Electronic Entertainment Expo, amid the bloat and pretense of the games industry, always must there be a presentation... always must there be game trailers... and always must there be those who commentate. So it is that we find ourselves in the aftermath of this year's collected summer showcases, a cavalcade of announcements and information to parse in its wake. For my part, I set forth to note the games that stood out among the pack. Today, we go over the high points of the Future Games Show , the Xbox Games Showcase , the PC Gaming Show and, yes , even the Ubisoft Forward . Heaven help us all... Future Games Show The High Point: Duck Detective: The Secret Salami The premise of “riffing on the hardboiled detective story with talking cartoon animals” would be a fine selling point for a game in itself. The choice to also lean into a sticker book aesthetic, complete with characters hobbling around as barely moving objects in a scene? Now that's a fun time ...
New year, new chance to hope against hope for good things before being crushed by the inevitable heartbreak of video games being a mess right now. In all seriousness, despite how easy it is to be cynical about the state of the industry, I still find value in examining the forthcoming slate of titles and offering my perspective on how much - or little - they have to offer. For today I have elected to pinpoint the five games whose marketing leaves much to be desired. Time will tell if I prove correct in my predictions here, but at this moment these are my feelings as to how entirely not enticing these games appear. The FIFTH LEAST PROMISING: Dead Space Releases January 27th The Basic Premise: It's the future, everyone's miserable and doing contract work like cracking planets for minerals. One such ship, the Ishimura, goes dark and eventually worries people enough to send a rescue crew to try to fix the situation. Enter the Necromorphs, space zombies of maybe supernatural origin...