Summer Games Fest - Forgettable. Only stand-out games were the Borderlands Spinoff, Metal Slug Tactics from dotemu and Elden Ring which . . idk I guess I’ll try it. Dark Souls et al have never really interested me.

Ubisoft - Snorefest. Sequels and DLC and idk a new xtreme sports game.

Devolver - YES, as usual. The new retro shooter from the Gato Roboto team looked great. Trek to Yomi looked a bit too much like “Ghost of 2d-shima” but it’s not like Suckerpunch is the only studio allowed to try and ape Kurosawa’s aesthetic in a videogame. Devolver Tumble Time also looked better than it has any right being. And as usual the presentation was the best part.

Gearbox - Even just a few years ago a Gearbox presser was something I’d sit in line for literally hours to see in person. Like, plan my whole day around it. Now? Ehhhhh. Apart from their Borderlands spinoff they didn’t have any new games to announce. Not even some garbo DLC’s for BL3. I chose to install a new toddler gate instead of actually watch. I feel I didn’t miss anything.

Microsoft - Incredibly strong lineup. Ridiculous year for Game Pass. Hades, Back 4 Blood, Like a Dragon out IMMEDIATELY, Starfield next year, Outer Worlds 2 . . eventually, buncha new indies, buncha demos out in a week, just great all around. Oh and Diablo 2 in September. With Cross-Save. Probably going to play it on PC, but who knows.

Square-Enix - Whole mess of crap that doesn’t matter. Guardians game that looks like crap. Avengers still bad. “Pixel Remakes” of FF1-6 which will almost certainly be reskins of the garbage mobile ports. . . but hey there’s a remake of Legend of Mana so that’s cool! The “Origins” re-imagining of FF1 looked like hot Nomura garbage. So . . . big pass.

Capcom - I legitimately have no idea why I bothered watching this. They could have just . . not done a presser.

Nintendo - Shockingly wonderful showing from Nintendo, after a solid year of uninspiring Directs. Super Monkey Ball 1+2 remake, sick. Mario Party Collection, sick. Metroid 5 (Samus Returns: 2), sick. Zelda Game & Watch, shockingly sick. BotW 2 trailer, sick. No Silksong, no Prime 4, no Bayo3, no hardware, no GBA-Online Featuring Mother 3. . . sigh. But rumors abound that pixel-peepers argue the Metroid 5 gameplay looked 60fps, so there’s still hope of an August or September Direct with the new hardware. . . which will inevitably lead to the problem of “what, I’m supposed to wait til December to play a game that came out in October?” Whatever they do, I’m along for the ride, as per usual.

Sony - Sir Not-Appearing-In-This-Film.