E3 has been in full swing for the best part of this week, with companies from all walks of the developmental life strutting their stuff on stage and in front of their booths, letting us and the attendees know just what we can expect from the gaming industry over the next 6-18 months.
Unfortunately of course, most of us have some semblance of a job to get to – even if it is writing about this sort of stuff – so we can't watch every press conference and of course, we aren't there in person to check out the games first hand.
In situations like this, you know what I like? A good round up.
With that in mind, here's some of the biggest news and headline grabbers to come out of E3 2014.
Ubisoft won't have female Assassin's in Unity
While this one has caused more of a stink than is probably warranted, Ubisoft dropped the ball after a great press conference by announcing that there would be no playable female characters in Unity. It kicked that ball into the dirt and popped it by saying that the reason, was that it would just be too much work to redo all the animations.
Cue the world at large (though mostly journos it must be said) crying foul and petitions and scandalous comments were hurled in Ubisoft's direction. It's calmed down a little since the original announcement, but Ubisoft is still doing damage control.
My guess is nothing changes and it doesn't add female characters this time around, but expect them to be present in all Assassin's Creed games going forward. Especially if there's a coop element.
No Man's Sky wows more than any AAA
There were some very pretty, very eye catching AAA games on show at E3 this year, but none quite like No Man's Sky. The amazing thing of course is that No Man's Sky isn't your typical AAA title. It's not made by some huge studio with multiple tens of millions to drop on a game and it doesn't have the warehouses of artists beavering away like the aforementioned Ubisoft does (making its "resources issues" claims seem even more ridiculous). No, No Man's Sky comes out of British outfit, Hello Games and is being put together by just seven people.
It's a stunning looking game, with a bright, vibrant and very contrasting (to usual big budget games) colour scheme, with lots of reds, oranges and yellows. It's aesthetically beautiful and technically enormous, giving players access to infinite, procedurally generated worlds and the ability to transfer between them in mere seconds. Well, between the worlds' surfaces and space anyway, you'll still need to travel between them via your own space craft, but that's hardly a chore is it?
But there's so much more to it. Space fleets to form and fight, asteroids to explode and explore – an entire universe of possibilities. And it's an indie.
That shouldn't work, but it does.
Smash Bros is just as frantic as ever
On the first official day of E3, following on from Nintendo's pre-recorded conference earlier on, we had the first ever Wii U Smash Bros championship, which seems ridiculous considering the game isn't even finished yet, but indeed a champion was crowned, fighting with Zero Suit Samus against the ever dangerous Kirby.
This is one of the first times we've seen the new Smash Bros in action and Nintendo fans are no doubt pleased to see that it's as frantic and action packed as ever, with new moves to consider and beautiful new lighting effects on the battle maps, making it look a damn sight better than the Wii's version.
We'll have to wait until the end of this year to get our hands on it, but since it's such a big game for Nintendo, which I'm sure it's hoping will sell systems, this was a good outing for the game.
Grim Fandango is coming to consoles in HD
One of the biggest cheers of the whole expo, was when Sony announced during its main press event that Grim Fandango, one of the most beloved and most requested for a remake, point and click games ever made, was getting a re-release on PS4, Vita and potentially other platforms in the future. It's going to have reworked controls to make them less frustrating and HD visuals.
While my own personal preference would lean towards something like Day of the Tentacle, Grim Fandango is still a fantastic, funny and puzzling point and click game and it'll be great to get a full HD rendering on modern systems. Expect a PC version to follow shortly after the PS4 version. Hopefully on GoG.
Destiny gets a new trailer, bucket loads more hype
Bungie's shooter/mmo/thing Destiny is one of the most hyped games in the world at the moment, so fans of the company and its upcoming game have every appendage crossed in the hopes that its good. But while we eagerly await its worldwide release on October 9th, Destiny got a new trailer at this year's E3 and it looks as exciting as ever.
Most of it was in-engine cut scene stuff, but there was also a few snippets of real gameplay there and it's looking pretty. The setting is also about as epic as you can get, so at least you'll feel like the saviour of the universe while gunning down enemies like you've been doing for years.
Oh and beta begins 07/17/14, so pre-order now if you want in.
There's a new Zelda game coming, at some point
One other big reveal that Nintendo made at E3, was a new Zelda game. Everyone expected it, as Link always shows up on new Nintendo hardware, but I don't think anyone thought it would look as pretty as it did. The following teaser trailer is in-engine, so it might not be quite this good looking when it's actually on our Wii Us, but it won't be far off.
There's not a lot to say other than it's gorgeous. We won't be getting a better look at this for some time, but the potential for a real open world in a Zelda game is pretty exciting.
Microsoft didn't mention the Kinect
This was just something that seemed off, considering what a big push Microsoft made for it when the Xbox One was released. It was barely mentioned and there were certainly no big games making use of the motion tracking hardware. Perhaps Microsoft has finally figured out that the Kinect just isn't a great tool for gaming?
Evolve got a new monster, the Kraken
We talked about this a little the other day, but Evolve is steadily becoming one of the bigger releases of this year, despite its October window being one of the most crowded in game launch history. Until now we've only seen one monster and eight hunters, but at E3 we got to see the Kraken, a Cthulu inspired, flying squid thing that shoots lightning and gravity well blasts.
It's a nasty looking critter that's been more than a challenge for the Nerdist teams as they switched back and forth to try and take it down.
E3 also told us that we'd be getting to see one more monster before the game's release on October 21st, as well as four more hunters and we also learned the game will launch with 12 or more maps.
In conclusion
There's been hundreds of announcements at E3 over the past few days, but these were the big ones for this writer. What do you think of the ones we've had so far and did you have any others that particularly grabbed your attention?