E3 2019: A to Z

Hello everyone and welcome back to Tiro Finale where we wrap up our week of E3 impressions courtesy of Tiro Finale's slowest writer, yours truly. Earlier on in the week, both Takuya and Lance have given their brutally honest opinion of this year's admittedly polarizing E3, and now comes my turn to give my take on the event. While many were disappointed at the reveals this year, I was actually fairly surprised by a number of them especially considering that I had not realized that E3 had actually started until I noticed a large number of new trailers popping up on my YouTube feed.

Last year, I made a list of my most anticipated titles from E3 2018. So, I thought it only to fit to continue the tradition this year. Only this time, we are going to do the list in alphabetical order!

AMD's Ryzen 9 3950X

 

Starting of with A is a company I never thought I would be singing praise about as much as I have in recent months, AMD. In the past two years, AMD has well and truly overcome their slump on both the graphical and processing front and are now taking the fight to their main competitors (Intel and Nvidia). During Computex this year, I was really excited for the announcement of AMD's new Ryzen 3000 series of processors together with the introduction of the Ryzen 9 sub-series which was meant to be their answer to Intel's Core i9 series. Unfortunately, at that time, AMD topped off with the Ryzen 9 3900X. A 12 core, 24 thread, 4.6GHz top chip that, while good, was not exactly what we have come to expect especially after all the leaks mentioning a 16 core top dog. By this point, many of us were wondering if the leaks were truly for naught.

Enter E3 2019 and it was like Christmas had arrived early as the Ryzen 9 3950X was finally revealed to all. The world's first 16-core gaming CPU may essentially just have been a re-tweaked Threadripper from AMD's EPYC series of server processors. But that would more than suffice to serve as the flag-bearer for AMD's meteoric rise to take back the throne from Intel. As one who has traditionally flied the colors of the Blue Team, there has never been a time more tempting for me to switch my banners and fly the colors of the Red Team.

Baldur's Gate 3

Baldur's Gate, the original Dungeons and Dragon's style western RPG. The spiritual origin of the Dragon's Age series. And to many, the progenitor of the Western RPG style. Yet, for decades much of this has gone unheard as Western RPGs themselves have fallen on somewhat hard times with the exception of CD Projekt Red and Larian Studios producing truly exceptional role-playing masterpieces. So when I found out that Larian Studios would in charge of the development of the latest installment of Baldur's Gate, it sounded to me like a match made in heaven. For I could not think of a better time or studio for this series to finally get its due. Details so far are pretty scarce but if there is any studio which can succeed in this outing, Larian is certainly one of them. 

Cyberpunk 2077

Cyberpunk 2077 caught my eye last year because of its sheer impressive graphical presentation which re-lit the fire within my soul when it comes to building PCs. For many years to come, I was convinced that Cyberpunk would be the benchmark of which many new PC part would be measured up against. Fast forward one year and Cyberpunk is now able to show off much of its gameplay and world building elements which make up the core game. More importantly, the scalability and technology of Cyberpunk's engines have also become clearer which helps us to put a gauge on just how this game is supposed to run on current generation consoles. It will not be easy but, CD Projekt Red have certainly put a lot of hard work into ensuring that it will run on all systems well.

Oh, and how can I forget? Keanu Reeves is in it too. In case you missed your opportunity to play him as John Wick in Payday 2, now you get to play with him as a key NPC in Cyberpunk 2077. Neat, huh? Now, where did I put all those PC parts to torture?

Dying Light 2

If it was not because of Jolly Cooperation, I really would not be writing about Dying Light 2 at all. But, the fact that this is one of the few remaining AAA Zombie video games yet to be released speaks volumes about the quality of Dying Light's initial outing at a time where the market was simply saturated with zombie games. The original Dying Light was everything I hoped that Dead Island would have been especially when it comes to a co-operative experience. Dying Light 2 then, has gone with the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" model without major changes to the core gameplay but rather, all around improvements and fine tuning to the game's systems. The addition of a fluid story system is another piece of the puzzle that I am looking forward to. If all things go according to play, you can expect to see Dying Light 2 being part of our Jolly Cooperation roster in the near future!

Ghostwire Tokyo

The first time I was the trailer for Ghostwire Tokyo, I was immediately reminded of Dishonored, for some reason or another. Perhaps it was the mythical setting? Or the fact that the protagonist wears a mask, has a magical had and a ranged/melee weapon in the other? Only later did I find out that the game would be developed by the same team that managed The Evil Within series. Making Ghostwire something more akin to a horror title. There has not been much revealed so far but, I will certainly be keeping a close eye on this title to see how it pans out. And I am hoping that they will be able to maintain the aesthetic that was presented in the trailer.

Marvel's Avengers

Seemingly out of nowhere, Square Enix decides to put on a presentation for Marvel's Avengers video game that had been in the works for a really long time now. Requiring the combined efforts of both Crystal Dynamics and Eidos Montreal, this was the game that Crystal Dynamics took time out from doing the Shadow of the Tomb Raider to focus on. From just the initial trailer, there was not too much information to be extracted as they consisted largely of selected cut scenes throughout the game. It was during the presentation, where it was announced that the game would have a four player co-operative campaign that it truly piqued my interests. I have played a good number of Marvel co-operative video games in the past but, never anything on the scale of this Avengers outing. Here is to hoping that Crystal Dynamics and Eidos Montreal are able to stick the landing!

Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2

Even before E3 came around, I was already very excited for this title from the initial trailer. Then Paradox's outing at E3 revealed even more footage together with early gameplay footage. These are still relatively early days but, Paradox certainly seems to be on the right track with both the tone and atmosphere befitting of the series and an overall consistency which promises an immersive experience. I dabbled in the original Bloodlines but, struggled to complete it due to the dated, even for its time, controls and game play. Nevertheless, I was immensely intrigued by the world of the Masquerade and the role playing elements of it. If Paradox can deliver a modernized version of the original outing, that alone is sufficient to lure me in. Though, I am very sure the studio aims to do more than just that.

Warframe: Empyrean

Every year, Digital Extremes makes a short appearance at E3's PC Gamer Show to give a small teaser of the next major update for Warframe. This year, they teased the Empyrean update which promises to introduce large scale space battles. More information would be revealed later at Tennocon but, it is still nice to see the guys and girls make their way from Canada to show some love to their E3 fans. 

Zelda: Breath of the Wild 2

Last but not least, we have Zelda: Breath of the Wild 2, my most anticipated title from E3 2019! No, I kid. I actually have not played any games in the Zelda series or many Nintendo games for that matter. Although, I would certainly love to, if it ever came to the PC! Well, you know where I am going. Still, it was cool that at least there was a game starting with the alphabet "Z". Otherwise, it would just be my A to W of E3 2019 and that would sound a little weird.

Anyway, I would hate to belabor the point as that were my top picks from this year's E3. Certainly a good number of games I would like to play and a handful that I am most certainly going to play. Stay tuned to our usual game segments on Tiro Finale where we give unconventional breakdown and opinions of the games we play aside from our usual anime/figure content. With that, we come to the end of our E3 2019 coverage. What would you like to see us do next? Do let us know in the comments section below and until the next time, thank you so much for reading and have yourself a wonderful day ahead!