As regular visitors to our lovely website will already be aware, we like to run a series of articles here at TheXboxHub harking back to great games of yesteryear. I myself have penned articles in praise of Forza Horizon 2, for instance, and even managed to cobble together something for the 40th birthday of PAC-MAN, a gaming hero who is nearly as old as I am. Now however I’m setting my sights a little higher: can I look back to the madness of the E3 conference of 2010? What games were released, what games went on to achieve greatness; which stumbled a little?
So, back in 2010, I was a new and proud owner of an Xbox 360, and about five years shy of starting to get involved in this newfangled writing-on-the-internet gig. Anyway, it was by watching E3 where we used to gather news of incoming games and just so we could have a look at what was due to be coming out on our beloved Xbox 360. So, what I hope to do in the upcoming paragraphs is pick five games that I personally felt were worthy of the hype.
The first category I have to choose is one of my favourites, the racing game. Now luckily, the games actually had awards for each category, and in this particular year, the best racing game honours went to Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit. Hot Pursuit was one of my favourites in the series, coming in a very respectable third place on my ranking of all the best Need For Speed games, and as such is a deserving winner.
The one taking second spot was Gran Turismo 5 – a game that I actually bought a PS3 in order to play. I was so disheartened after what had happened to the franchise that I sold the PS3 and the games about two weeks later, but I digress.
But anyways, the stand out here was the NFS offering. The speed of the game was the thing that was the most memorable about Hot Pursuit, and with Criterion at the helm, those of Burnout fame, the DNA of that other racing series was easy to see. Screaming through a forest as a cop, hitting racers with EMPs and roadblocks, then taking the action online and busting your friends, it was all just so lovely. And it was here where we saw the start of the whole “Autolog” thing – truly the beginning of something good.
The “Best Online Multiplayer Game” award amused me no end, with it going to Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood. Don’t get me wrong, Brotherhood was a fine game, and the multiplayer was, I’m gonna say, okay. However, the game that was kept off the top spot by Brotherhood was Gears of War 3. Gears 3 losing to Assassin’s Creed… in a multiplayer award? Bonkers.
Gears 3 delivered the start of fortifications in Horde mode, allowing you to purchase new and better things to keep you alive that little bit longer. It helps that it was brilliant fun as well. Sitting on a turret you’d sweated blood to afford was a great vindication, letting you destroy the boss waves with ease. Add to this the whole 4-player co-op campaign and the various PVP game types, and this was a winner by anyone’s standards. And the new anti-horde mode, where you had to play as the locust and kill the CoG heroes? That was inspired. This Beast Mode was a great addition, as my squad and I spent many happy hours scuttling around as Tickers.
The Best Action Game category was particularly hotly contested at E3 2010, with five strong entries, any of which could have won the crown. Halo: Reach, Gears 3, and even the mighty Call of Duty Black Ops had to play second fiddle to two new franchises that were launched this year: Bulletstorm and Rage.Â
Now, both of these games were great, but I think my favourite, my personal favourite, was Bulletstorm. The juvenile humour was right up my alley, the use of the Thumper to launch enemies before blasting them in the crotch or kicking them into a cactus was inspired, and I have to admit to becoming at one with some of the more difficult skillshots.
Rage was a more serious game, but the Wingstick was a pretty good weapon to master, and the shooting action was certainly of a high quality. However I just preferred the whole look and feel, even the smell, of Bulletstorm. Who can forget running away from a giant wheel, trying to blow things up to keep it from catching our train?
The Best RPG category is always of interest to me. Some corkers were announced in 2010, with Star Wars: The Old Republic taking top spot and Deus Ex: Human Revolution leading the charge for the console gamers. They were followed by Fable III and a little game called Fallout: New Vegas. The new Bethesda game could only scrape fourth place in this category, just ahead of The Witcher 2, and given how broken it was at launch, that may have been remarkably prescient. I still recall the YouTube videos showing what happened when the game went bad, and proper nightmare fuel they were too.Â
The other two games in the list for consoles were fortunately a little more stable, but didn’t ultimately have the legs that New Vegas did; in fact I would say that of those included it was New Vegas that ultimately won the day. However, Fable 3 and Deus Ex were both worthy experiences; Fable being the better of the two in my eyes.
Any game that lets you marry a friend, an actual Xbox Live friend, and have a family is alright by me.
Finally, I have to touch upon the Hardware category, as behind the all-conquering 3DS (it really doesn’t seem like 10 years since that was announced) was a little invention that Microsoft had been working on. Kinect.
The whole Microsoft event pretty much told us how Kinect was going to change the world. And it did, briefly. But I soon got over the inclusion of Kinect features in games, as initially it was all very gimmicky – looking around the cars in Forza Motorsport 4 was one such instance. I could still be found talking to my Kinect right up until the start of the Xbox One era, but alas, that is no more. The 2010 was the genesis of the whole Kinect thing, and that’s pretty much it for my memories of the event.
Looking back at the records of the show, there were a lot of notable games that sneaked under the radar. The Vietnam expansion for Bad Company 2 was announced, along with Dead Rising 2, Spec Ops The Line, Crazy Taxi; even the Mortal Kombat franchise received a new game. However, it wasn’t all awesome games and fun and frivolity, oh deary me no. EA led the charge with the shovelware, with the yearly update to its numbered sports franchises, a whole slew of games I couldn’t care less about. Staying with EA and Medal of Honor limped onto consoles and was, frankly, rubbish. It certainly wasn’t a CoD beater, no matter what EA wanted us to believe. Speaking of disappointing shooters, Homefront was also announced, a game I remember mainly for just being dull to play, whether alone or online. Clash of the Titans and Splatterhouse were another couple of disappointments, with Splatterhouse in particular having the dubious achievement of not being as good as the original game that was released way back on the SNES.
Leaving these games aside, the five things I’ve chosen are the ones that I feel had the strongest effect on my own personal gaming of that particular year. But what about you guys? Do you remember back to E3 of 2010? What stood out for you? Let us know in the comments.
