From female characters to virtual reality, E3 2015 reveals latest video-game trends

The annual gaming extravaganza known as the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) drew more than 50,000 people to the Los Angeles Convention Center to get a glimpse at the titles set to be released in the coming months.

The Georgia Straight was there because you couldn’t be. Here are some observations from E3, which took place June 16 to 18.

Female characters starring in more games

Female protagonists had a greater presence this year than ever before at E3. And while writer Rhianna Pratchett is correct (she wrote on Twitter: “Female leads should not be seen as ‘progressive’. Because we’re half the population. And we have wonderful experiences & stories to share.”), the fact that diverse and interesting female characters are becoming a normal part of games is good for everyone, whether they play the games or not.

Some games are giving players a choice of gender, such as Fallout 4, FIFA 2016, Dishonored 2, and Mass Effect: Andromeda. Other games, including Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate, will have players switching between male and female roles.

Still others feature female stars. Beyond Eyes is about a young blind girl trying to find her way through the world. Lara Croft is back in a new adventure, Rise of the Tomb Raider. Mirror’s Edge Catalyst is a new first-person game featuring Faith, a free-runner resisting a totalitarian state. Aloy is a machine hunter in Horizon: Zero Dawn, which takes place more than a thousand years after the collapse of civilization as we know it. ReCore is about a young female adventurer who is accompanied by robotic creatures. And Tacoma has astronaut Amy Ferrier searching a space station for missing crew members.

Music games make a comeback

Activision’s new Guitar Hero Live makes things different by flipping the perspective. Instead of playing the game while watching cartoon musicians, you’ll now see footage of a crowd of fans, who will cheer when you’re hitting the right notes, and will sneer at you when you don’t. You will need to buy new instrument controllers to play it because there’s a new button layout.

Harmonix, meanwhile, is supporting old instruments with Rock Band 4. Spokesperson Nick Chester said that the goal, as always, is to make people feel like musicians. The game now allows for freestyle guitar solos, which is something the developer has wanted to do from the beginning but technically wasn’t able to achieve until now.

Project Morpheus is getting better

I’m prone to simulator sickness, which refers to the dizziness and nausea suffered by some people experiencing virtual reality (VR). But after trying a bunch of the demos that Sony had at E3 for its Project Morpheus VR headset, I’ve got a better sense of what gives me vertigo. The ability to move around while in a virtual world makes a big difference. One reason sim sickness occurs is because your eyes are sending signals to your brain that your body is moving. If there aren’t corresponding signals from your body, your brain gets confused.

When I tried a multiplayer game called Rigs, I was in a virtual mech, running and jumping around, while me body was sitting in a chair. I didn’t come through that very well. But when trying the Getaway chapter of The London Heist, a VR experience from Sony’s London Studio, I didn’t have the same problem because in the simulation I was sitting in a vehicle. The more I moved my body and my head, to shoot at pursuers, the less dizziness I experienced.

HoloLens is unbelievable

I had three opportunities to use HoloLens, the augmented-reality experience coming from Microsoft. While wearing the headset, you can see your real-world surroundings; HoloLens superimposes information onto your perception of that space. Because it is untethered—it’s actually a self-contained computer with speakers—you can move around freely.

The Halo demo had me walking through a hallway following a waypoint only I could see, then watching a briefing that took place atop a table. Except I saw the 3-D map of a complex before me. With Project X-Ray, I had a game controller in my hands as I moved around an open room, looking to target enemy robots with my gaze, using the controller to shoot, and physically dodging enemy fire. While playing Minecraft with HoloLens, I was able to use the wall as my virtual monitor, and could render a 3-D version of the world on a tabletop.

It is an utterly convincing experience. I fully believed that everyone in the room could see what I was seeing. Which, of course, they couldn’t, because they weren’t wearing a HoloLens.