The Geek Girl Report: Sci-fi, Shooters, Space Adventures And…Squids? A Look Back At E3 2014 [Part 1]

I love Summer. The weather's warm, the pool's nice and cool, and the video games are hotter than ever. The Electronic Entertainment Expo, better known as E3, took place last week, showcasing the biggest, baddest and most anticipated games coming out in the next few months. And this year has plenty of blockbuster titles, pleasant surprises, and returning fan favorites, and that's just from the Big 3. Here are the highlights from Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo's E3 presentations

Sony
The PS4 is currently winning the next-gen console battle, and Sony knows it. Which would probably explain why they went with an extremely long, somewhat lackluster E3 conference, especially when you compare it with last year's Microsoft shame-fest. Despite their self-indulgence, Sony still had some very promising titles to show off. The much-anticipated sci-fi shooter Destiny started off the show, with the announcement that it would arrive on the PS4 first. We also got a good look at some highly anticipated sequels such as Far Cry 4 and Metal Gear Solid 5, and Sony even brought back some of their fan favorite titles like Uncharted and Little Big Planet.

As for new games, The Order: 1886 looks to be a creepy and compelling mix of third-person action and old-world supernatural evils. The jaw-droppingly beautiful No Man's Sky also made its debut, in which players can seamlessly explore an alien world, then fly into the stars and fend off other hostile explorers before diving back into another completely different world. Judging by what they showed off this year, it looks like Sony will continue to stay at the top of the next-gen pack.

Microsoft
Last year's E3 was abysmal for Microsoft. Not only did they try to push a console nobody wanted, cram it full of features nobody liked and ended up being outclassed by every single company there, but they had very little to show it the way of games. Luckily, it seems that Microsoft learned its lesson this time around, focusing more on the games and less on the console itself. Gamers got an impressive first look at the newest Call of Duty Advanced Warfare and Assassin's Creed Unity. While these games will be available on both PS4 and XBox One, it was Microsoft that got the honor of showing off these games during their E3 presentation.

In the way of new games, Evolve looks to be a really interesting title with a team of 4 humans taking one one giant human-controlled monster. And the awesome Microsoft exclusive Sunset Overdrive looks to be a refreshing change from the standard overly-serious shooters with its bright, colorful environments, crazy weapons and atmosphere, and emphasis on parkour and rail sliding. Overall, it was a marked improvement from last year's convention, which isn't really saying much considering how lousy that was.

Nintendo
By and large, Nintendo had the most entertaining E3 presentation, thanks in part to them opening up the show with the two major heads of Nintendo beating the snot out of each other. (yes, that's actually how it starts.) While most of the exclusively-digital event was focused on the Wii U and 3DS blockbuster Super Smash Bros, Nintendo also had a few surprises for its E3 fans this year. One of those was the announcement of a brand new Legend of Zelda game that developers have promised will be the most "open world" Zelda game yet, as well as new information on the Zelda/Dynasty Warriors crossover project Hyrule Warriors. Mario's loveable dinosaur pal Yoshi is also starring in his own new game: Yoshi's Woolly World, and Pokemon fans were treated to their first real look at Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, the much-anticipated remakes of the original Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire games.

Probably one of the biggest surprises of the show was Splatoon, a multi-player shooter that replaces the standard soldiers and firearms with ink-shooting Super Soaker-style guns wielded by...squid girls, of all things. Goofy as it sounds, it looks to be just as solid as other squad-based shooters like Team Fortress 2, only much more family friendly. It's been a long time coming, but it looks like the Wii U is finally hitting it's stride, and 2014 is looking to be a great year for Nintendo fans.

And that's just from the Big 3 shows. We haven't even gotten to the third-party developers and what they had to show off this year. But I'll be getting to those in Part 2 later this week.

Be sure and check out The Geek Girl Report every Tuesday morning only on KFYO.com. And be sure to keep up with me on Twitter as well: @the_littlest_a.