E3 2014: Highlights of Day Three
The best-looking games at the show, another gruesome Mortal Kombat, and getting an overload of cuteness with Yoshi's Woolly World.
After the hardware-heavy focus of last year's E3, this year's conference has been all about the games. And some of those games have boasted some of the best visuals we've ever seen. And we're not just talking about games that have pushed graphical fidelity to new heights, but new experiences that have used unique or distinctive art styles to stand out from the pack. We've collated some of the best-looking games at the show here, and while we don't know how all of these games will actually play, we do know one thing -- they sure do look great.
Of course, one of the key reasons were seeing such visually impressive games is because of the added power of new consoles like the Xbox One and PS4. The best way to see just how much graphics have improved is by comparing the same game between the previous and current generations, and luckily, there's one game that we've been able to compare here at E3. With the remastered The Last of Us heading to PS4, we've compared the visuals for the upcoming release with the original PS3 version, and as you'll see in this video, the differences are pretty clear.
One game that is certainly visually distinctive is the new Mortal Kombat X, although that's probably due to how this already violent series is pushing the gore to new levels in the latest instalment. The power of the current-generation consoles means the gruesome X-ray moves introduced in the previous Kombat game look even more crunchy and disturbing than ever before. Which is great news for Mortal Kombat fans, of course.
At the other end of the visual spectrum is the extremely cute Yoshi's Woolly World, where there's nary a fatality in sight. In this game, the wonderful, colorful world of Nintendo's lead dinosaur mascot has been transformed to look like everything was knitted together from strings of wool. Visually, it looks a lot like Kirby's Epic Yarn from a few years back, but the action is all Yoshi.
And that's it for another E3. There were, of course, many other games and announcements made, and we've listed some of the major ones below for you:
- Nintendo's new 3DS game, Code Name S.T.E.A.M., gets officially announced.
- Our hands-on with the next Disney Infinity game.
- Hyrule Warriors is Dynasty Warriors in The Legend of Zelda universe.
- Three things we learned after playing Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare.
For more on E3, check out CNET sister site GameSpot.com's full coverage.