5. Dead Rising 3
One of the best looking games of the entire conference, Dead Island 3 was described as a realistic zombie apocalypse title. While thats a claim impossible to confirm or deny, the trailer, consisting mostly of gameplay footage, looked pretty amazing. Taking place in a dusty suburban neighbourhood similar to the one seen at the start of Telltale Games Walking Dead Episode One, were shown the player character trying desperately to make his way through the over-run town. Starting off running from a group of 4 zombies, a wooden fence breaks down moments later to reveal tens more, a number that again escalates once the character makes it to the roof of a nearby house and looks down upon the streets clogged with the rotting flesh of these walking embodiments of death. Visually the game is wonderful, with the brownish surroundings being a far call from the colourful nature of its predecessor and creating a sense of macabre dread not dissimilar to that felt while watching The Road. And while the combat looks near identical to previous titles, with the player using a sawblade and shotgun (among other things) to slash and bang his way through enemies, strategically avoiding large clusters so not to be overwhelmed, the persistent effectiveness of these mechanics when used in the previous titles means there was very little motivation for developers to change them here. A further part of the game that stood out was the voice acting, with the few spoken lines really conveying the sense of distress the character was feeling and thus making players feel the same fearful anxiety (something sadly lacking from the previous games). Admittedly the title wont be anything ground-breaking, mainly sticking to old tropes that have been tried and tested many times before, yet as long as the game is enjoyable there shouldnt be any cause for complaint.