{"id":4310,"date":"2012-06-13T05:05:37","date_gmt":"2012-06-13T05:05:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/danielprimed.com\/?p=4310"},"modified":"2012-06-20T04:17:08","modified_gmt":"2012-06-20T04:17:08","slug":"e3-2012-game-design-insights-and-commentary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/danielprimed.com\/2012\/06\/e3-2012-game-design-insights-and-commentary\/","title":{"rendered":"E3 2012 Game Design Insights and Commentary"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Walking down a hallway, solving an obvious puzzle and mashing a button for a quick time event: sounds like one of the most anticipated games of 2012 to me! Or at least, this was the response by many \u201ccritics\u201d<\/em> in print, the enthusiast press and on blogs to the Tomb Raider<\/em> reboot<\/a> showed off at last year’s Microsoft E3 event. The game’s second live demo at this year’s show, a bunch of disconnected; barely-interactive gameplay sequences, only provided further proof of the lack of concrete game design. Yet while the game’s gratuitous brutality has been rightfully questioned, the equally dubious gameplay has avoided heavy scrutiny. The uncritical eye of the majority of game \u201ccritics\u201d<\/em> continues to be distracted by flashy graphics and throat stabbing. (For many of the reasons why, read here<\/a>. I’ll be exploring some more reasons later). This year’s E3 brought its fair share of Tomb Raiders including Resident Evil 6<\/em>, Last of Us<\/em>, boating in Assassins Creed<\/em>, Star Wars 1313<\/em> and Sleeping Dogs<\/em>\u2014most of which will be hyped beyond reasonable doubt; some of which will probably win something at the game critics awards<\/a>. Update: Turns out I was right on the money<\/a>.<\/p>\n

While there is growing disapproval around Tomb Raider<\/em> and other games of its ilk, such voices haven’t reached a critical mass to drown out the marketing buzz. This E3, I compiled notes on the conferences and key games of the show, with a focus on insightful commentary and game design. Although my ideas are limited to trailers and game demos put online, I hope it gives you an idea of the type of commentary we’d be getting if critics valued gameplay as much as they say they do.<\/p>\n

Please let me know what you think and what you made of the show in general with the new Disqus comment system. You can sign in with your social media handlers too.<\/p>\n

Microsoft’s Conference<\/strong><\/p>\n