E3 Trifecta: Tomb Raider, Soul Calibur V, Darksiders II

? This video for the next Tomb Raider is only a CG video, but it’s a pretty good one. Lord knows how the gameplay will be, but the video makes me think it’s going to be kind of Uncharted-like, and now that I’ve played those games I’m totally fine if Tomb Raider decided to rip off Uncharted a little. I’d rather them steal from the best than get anywhere near that Angel of Darkness bullshit again.

? Honestly, this is the least excited by a new Soul Calibur game trailer as I’ve ever been. It’s just Sophitia’s kid and someone who looks like Sophitia and someone who’s probably Siegfried doing the same damn things as always. Obviously, I care enough about SC that I’ll withhold most of my judgments until I get a sense of the gameplay, but I can tell you this — one of the many reasons I liked the earlier Soul Calibur games better is because the ridiculous combos and air juggles were few and far between. This trailer does not indicate to me that an improvement has been made on this score.

? I’ll be honest with you; Darksiders was not that great a game, but I enjoyed the hell out of it. Maybe I’d just been playing so many RPGs and sand-box games, but it was really nice to have a reasonably sized hack-n-slash (with a little leveling up)-type game that I could finish in a week, and even get all the achievements, too. It was really satisfying — as was the level where I shot down about a million angels with a holy bazooka with unlimited ammo. I’m just saying I’m looking forward to the sequel, that’s all.