Despite detractors for years talking about its falling relevance among consumers, E3 remains one of (if not the) biggest games focused expos in the world. It continues to draw big crowds and big names, along with big announcements, so of course there's lots to talk about with what's been going on there.
We've covered a few of the bases already, like Oculus' big pre-E3 showings of the consumer version of its headset, its cloth covering and motion controls and Bethesda wowed audiences this weekend by showcasing not just Fallout 4, but the new Doom reboot and Dishonored 2 as well.
There's even going to be an advanced, prettier version of the original game which will be ported to the Xbox One and PS4, as well as being rereleased on PC.
But all this is just the tip of the iceberg. There's so much more that's been going on and of course, Megagames is here to break down some of the biggest announcements you might have missed.
For starters, Nintendo had a big showing this weekend, which kicked off with some leaked images showing a new Mario Maker amiibo was in the works, right alongside several that are based on the Animal Crossing universe. To make sure we were nicely distracted from that however, Nintendo pushed hard with its World Championships Competition, which had players playing some truly unique and bizarre Super Mario Bros. Worlds, created we're sure, in Mario Maker.
There was also some big Splatoon action and of course, a big Smash Bros tournament, which again proved heavily competitive. There were also a number of smaller titles which look like quite a blast to play in a group, including an FPS soccer hybrid based in the Metroid Prime universe.
Ultimately however, there could only be one winner and it was John Numbers, who beat out Cosmo Wright in a hotly contested Mario Maker game. He was awarded not only the Nintendo World Championship trophy, but a New 3DS XL signed by Shigeru Miyamoto.
Moving away from the games of today for a second, let's look at what many people consider the future of gaming, VR. We heard about Oculus' plans for its headset(s) in the near future, but there are many other competitors on the scene now. There's Sony's Morpheus, which will be shown off in the coming couple of days and of course the HTC Vive, which uses Valve's tech.
But there's another competitor and it has the potential to blow all of the others out of the water if its hardware is as good as it claims. InfinitEye was a company working on a major VR headset with very forward thinking hardware. It was recently acquired by Starbreeze, the maker of Escape from Butcher Bay, Payday 2 and Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons. It has since been working on the StarVR headset and its specs are even better than that of Oculus' Rift.
Said to feature twin 1440P displays, with a 210 degree viewing angle, the StarVR has the potential to blow every other VR display out of the water. The question at this point is, how can it possibly hope that consumer PCs will be able to run high end experiences on it? It's essentially asking for 5K resolution support from developers and for the hardware in people's PCs to run it. Even really high end systems can't handle some games at 4k at anything close to 60 frames per second. We need more than that for VR, which might mean this headset is too forward thinking.
We'll have to wait and see about people's impressions when they come in.
Platinum Games – maker of Bayonetta - announced over the weekend that it was working on a new Transformers game, but with a more cartoony theme, perhaps showing peoples' desire to move away from Michael Bay's bombastic take on the universe. It will support current and last gen systems and there will be a number of recognisable robots, along with many of the original voice actors from the '80s tv show.
The final reveal to come through over the past few days was more of a tease, as creator of Shenmue Yu Suzuki sent out an image of a forklift truck, prompting many to hyperventilate at the thought of a third Shenmue game.
It probably doesn't mean anything, but that doesn't mean we can't keep our fingers crossed.
What was the bigged announcement from E3 for you guys?