crispy4000

The controls are serviceable at best, and I mean that literally. You can steer. You can attempt the things you want. It doesn't feel good, but it's not like you can't try to work with the basics. But man, the camera is jarringly bad. Grinding on anything feels jank. Animations are unpolished. Collisions kill all momentum. Landing tricks lack impact. The physics actively get in the way the of having fun. The flapping mechanic actually hurts the game more than helps: you flail in effort to make it fun, when you really can't. It's a far below average for the genre, IMO. I think there's enough objectively wrong about it to say that.

I'm all for extreme sports games that don't try to ape Tony Hawk. There's many that don't and are still good. Skatebird is not one of them. The problem isn't there's better games out there. It's that even if Skatebird was the first to come up with its type of gameplay, it would still be trash. It's janky in a genre that demands fluidity. It's as if the developers felt no pressure to make it fun to play, and stopped iterating on the controls once they were semi-functional.

It was in one of those large itch bundles a few months back too. Sometimes experiencing a truly bad game makes you appreciate the good ones more, and checks your own hyperbole.

Actually, no. Videos of Skatebird don’t adequately communicate just how bad it feels to play. It’s a revelation to pick up the controls for the first time. It’s downright offensive.

PSA: This game is total shit.

Think Grubb said no.

More leaky rumors from Mr. Tom I don't leak things I shut up Henderson

@Keyser_Soze It’s gotten better, surely. But I want to see them get to a point where they don’t have push teaser trailers so much, especially for new IP. Last year’s show was no exception. They’ve got the studios now, and hopefully, more gameplay demos this year. I’d be cool with it if they spent this showcase doubling down on games releasing in the next 12 months. And I think they will.

I’m annoyed that their show wasn’t their show so much as Summer Games Fest Showcase part 1. If Sony brought the goods this year, both would have been elevated. (Not-)E3 would have been much better this year.

The rest of what you didn’t quote. I don’t think we’ll see a 1st party showcase any time soon, especially because of the pandemic. I’d love to be wrong. Microsoft did it that way in 2020.

My expectations for a 1st party (not-)E3 showcase is for 1st party to carry the show. Not 1st party presents: 3rd party. Of course I didn’t go into this thinking I’d see differently, because of how Sony qualified it. But ultimately, this just isn’t what a Sony show should be. Or a Microsoft one. Or a Nintendo one.

Setting expectations doesn’t change what it was.

I just realized that Tom Henderson was the guy who leaked Kojima’s game. Some double standard, lol.

There's a decent chance its a fake. But as a line-up goes, it seems plausible. The silliest thing on there is an Everwild update. It'd be hilarious if we learn what that game actually is before Fable and Perfect Dark.

Revisiting this show in retrospect... Sony did the thing I hated most about E3 presentations of the past: they made it a 3rd party show. I don't mind having a couple things in there by their partners. But the major publishers should be hosting their own damn show (props Capcom) rather than piggy backing off Sony. If Sony's games weren't ready yet due to the pandemic and what they released on PS5 already, that's understandable. But this was still too much. I don't think they should have held back the Last of Us remake either for Geoff. Heck, delaying the Wolverine announcement until now could have been smart. Overall, it's was a decent show, but also was the opposite of what it should be. Sony bringing almost nothing to the table this year likely contributed to making the SGF showcase worse too. ... Side note, where the heck are EA and Ubisoft this year?

Click for potential leak spoilers:

It works better when the games are more interesting, or have more interesting new things to show. Personally, I'm way more interested in American Arcadia now than I was, because they were able to communicate the asymmetrical format of it better here.

Would anyone like a Bionic Commando, DmC or Strider key? Already have those.

Overall I'm not sure I liked their lesser known picks this year. But it did convince me that American Arcadia is shaping up to be something special.

Plague's Tale Requiem is out this year, nice.

@DPCyric Speaking of Day of the Devs, I think SCHiM was another standout.

Last year's best E3 show is back.