I watched the EA conference, the Microsoft conference and most of the Bethesda conference. Here are my quick takes.....
-Anthem. It's all about Anthem. It makes me forget about all of the cool games I saw over the weekend (and there were a lot). Bioware hit it out of the park with this new IP, the game play looks amazing. I love the Exo-Suits shown and the ability to fly/glide towards destinations, I love that they are customizable too. The lush environments a 'la Crysis 3 really demonstrated graphical capability on the Xbox One X (Scorpio) and looked absolutely stunning. The Shaper Storms really showed off the dynamic weather and looked really sharp. Anthem looks to be a strong contender for Best of Show E3 2017.
Star Wars Battlefront 2- Looks really good, the 40 player battle they had going on Theed was pretty epic and expanded on the first game in every way. I thought it was cool that John Boyega was one of the players that took part in it. This game looks to deliver on a lot of the wishes the first one fell short of
-Madden 18, the new long shot story mode is a drastically different path for the long time franchise, it looks refreshing to me. It appears to play like a sports movie, I might have to get this game. It would be the first Madden I bought since 2015. I'm glad EA is trying new things.
Surviving Mars- It was just a quick clip but from the brief trailer, it looked similar to Astroneer but with farming possible, I'm definitely interested to see more.
Forza 7- I saw everything I wanted to see except one thing, I'll get to that later. I love the time progressing and expanded weather features. The 4k graphics were stunning but physics-wise, the rattling of wiper blades and body panels is new to the series and should offer a new feel to driving cars at very high speeds. The new Dubai track was honestly a little bland looking. Yes the graphics were detailed and the rocks had a fantastic amount of surface textures, but it's the desert, the color of sand everywhere. I thought it was a little underwhelming compared to past track unveils like the Rio track in Forza 6. The one thing I didn't see mentioned above was the ability to create blueprints for races like in Forza Horizon 3. I really want this feature in FM7, it would make the game's racing experience so much more customizable and unique to each player.
-Black Desert looked like a pretty fun MMORPG. I don't play the Elder Scrolls Online mainly because there's a subscription fee (unless it's gone now, no idea), and this game looks like it could scratch that itch. What left the biggest impression on me was not just the variety of classes to play as but the action/ combat and what looked like combos pulled of with different characters. A major complaint of mine with games like Dragon Age Origins, and Skyrim to a certain extent, is that overall, I find the combat sort of lacking. I prefer faster paced, more in depth combat, like in a game like Kingdoms of Amalur-The reckoning for example. The ability to switch weapons on the fly, and execute combos is more fun to me in Kingdoms, can't wait to see more on Dark and Light.
Bethesda- Not much to write, I'm just not interested in Zombie games or gory games slicing up Nazis (Wolfenstein 2), the Evil Within 2 doesn't interest me either, I just don't like creepy games, not my thing. They did not reveal the rumored 'Starfield' which was my primary reason for watching the conference, so for me the Bethesda conference was a big dud IMO.
EDIT: wrong game reference, changed game title from Dark and Light to Black Desert.