BEST. E3. EVER!!!

Seriously, I can't remember the last E3 where I felt this much satisfaction and hype since I started keeping up with the conference. Sure, there were some things that I would've liked to have gotten a little more info on, but compared to how blown away I was by the event as a whole makes up for those FEW small spots where I wanted a little more. So what did I think about what exactly? Well since it'd take too long to cover every little thing, I'll just go over the big 3: Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo. Ooooooh boy, is there stuff to say...

Microsoft: Man, there was A LOT riding on Microsoft this year. After the reveal of the glorified cable-box that is the Xbox One the other month, Microsoft has been on the thinnest of ice in the time leading up to E3. And what happened? First off, I tuned into there conference completely expecting laugh my ass of watching them trying to justify their new "console." But... in all honesty, their conference was surprisingly solid! They kept there cool, they focused on the games, and actually showed of some rather cool stuff, with the highlight for me being the long-awaited new iteration of Killer Instinct! Some other cool showcases included Ryse (which seemed like a more cinematic take on God of War), Project Spark, a new Halo (duh ), and Titanfall. But despite these great-looking games, the question I felt needed to be asked was "did any of them look worth putting up with the all of the Xbox One's BS?" And honestly... no, they didn't. Despite the cool factor behind a lot of these games, the vast majority of them weren't anything we haven't seen before (on Microsoft consoles no less). That combined with the fact that they didn't even touch on the "console" itself to at least clear up some of the mud that has been slung at it, and the OBSURRED price point they announced for the thing, resulted in a conference that gave very little to no incentive to give the Xbox One a second thought. So all-in-all I'd give Microsoft's E3 2013 Press Conference a 4/10. Sorry Microsoft, you DID at least keep me entertained for the hour and a half you had, but I didn't see anything that convinced me that your new "console" is worth the trouble.

Sony: Won. Plain and simple, hands-down, no question, Sony won! Okay, okay, let me slow down. Actually, I'll be the first to admit that Sony might have gotten off to a bit of a rough start. They started off with some PS3 previews, which is totally fine! But the fact they showed off The Last of Us, a game that is already out, was kind of disappointing. And aside from that was just trailers of games we already know about: Beyond (which DOES look very interesting), Gran Turismo 6, Dark Souls 2, etc. Then they moved on to the Playstation Vita, which they thankfully didn't spend too much time on. Honestly, I don't think the Vita's really going to take off until the Playstation 4 is released. And on that note, they finally moved onto the PS4... starting with entertainment. I won't lie, when they started talking about all of the TV and music streaming services, I couldn't help but groan. It looked like they were going down the same road as Microsoft during the Xbox One reveal, all I could do was hope that they wouldn't spend too much time with it. And thankfully they didn't! And with that, they came out GUNS-A-BLAZIN with trailers and gameplay previews: Killzone, Infamous, Batman, Dark Sorcerer, tons of cool-looking new Indie titles, AAAAAAAAAHHHHH SO HYPE!!! And then pull out what I could only assume was their trump card: they get Tetsuya Nomura of Square-Enix on the line, who then shows new trailers of Final Fintasy Versus 13 which we learned is now officially Final Fantasy 15 (which was probably the best thing they could do for that game now), AND our very first look at the MUCH long-anticipated Kingdom Hearts 3!!! Finally, after all of that, they get into what we really wanted to know about: the console itself. In what has been described as the biggest E3 trolling since Berney Stoller, Sony basically announced that the PS4 essentially is the anti-Xbox One: used game-friendly, no DRM of any kind, and most importaintly, PRICED REASONABLY!!! Sony, "bravo" would be the underpraising of the century, and that's why I give you guys a 9/10! Despite getting of to a bit of a rocky start, and not giving any info on The Last Guardian, you guys stole the show, showing us that you've learned from your mistakes in the past and know who you're trying to sell to!

Nintendo: Nintendo didn't give a full-on press conference this year, but they DID give us a special edition of Nintendo Direct, and frankly, despite being not even an hour long, they certainly left their mark! Starting with a new trailer for Pokemon X and Y, which showed of a surprising number of new content; including some new Pokemon, sky battles, horde battles, and a kind of Pokemon bonding feature that strongly resembles Kingdom Hearts 3D. Talk about starting strong! Afterwards, (appropriately) they showed a glimpse of what's coming from the Mario universe in the form of Super Mario 3D World and Mario Kart 8, both of which look like are gonna be a blast! Then they showed some prerequisite casual/party games (which they THANKFULLY didn't spend too much time on this time ), we got some new footage of of the Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD, which looks MUCH than the screenshot we had seen previously. I'm don't know if it was just overall improved or if this is just gonna be one of those games that just doesn't look good in screens, but whatever the case, I think it looks great, I'm not even that big into Legend of Zelda! And then, at long last, we finally got to see Retro Studio's new game: Donckey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze! I'll admit, I was a little disappointed that after all of the speculation around the project, it just turned out to be another DOnkey Kong game, but it looks like a lot of fun, and that's all the really matters in the end, right? Next they showed a couple more upcoming 3rd-party titles like Bayonetta 2 (which is actually making me really wanna finally sit down and play the first one...), and even Monolith Software's new game, which is still under the title "Project X," but still look really cool either way. And as their big finale', they finally give us a trailer for the one game we had all tuned in to see: Super Smash Bros. 4, which looks as incredible as one would have guessed, it coming for both WiiU and 3DS, AND FINALLY GIVES US MEGAMAN AS A PLAYABLE CHARACTER!!! So after all of that, what's the final verdict? Well, as fun as (almost) all of Nintendo's titles look, at the end of the day, there really weren't any huge surprises. We already knew about Wind Waker HD, we already knew about Bayonetta 2, we already knew about Pokemon, even Smash Bros was publically promised just before the conference. Aside from that, all of the "new" reveals were mostly all new installments of the same Nintendo franchise that we've pretty much come to expect each year. We can always expect a new Mario, we can always expect a new Donkey Kong, and now we can always expect some new casual/party/fitness games that we DON'T CARE ABOUT! But... as said before, it all comes down to if the games themselves look fun, and lets face it, its Nintendo, OF COURSE they're gonna be fun! So with all that in mind, I'd give Nintendo a 7.5/10. Even though I feel they could have benefited from throwing a full-on conference, Nintendo made up for their somewhat disappointing conference last year, and gave us plenty to look forward to!

Like I said before, this year's E3 was fantastic, and I'm already psyched for next year's convention! There's plenty more that I could talk about, and could literally go on for hours.

So now I'd like to know: what was your favorite announcement, reveal, or whatever of E3 2013?