Six games to watch for from E3

Another E3 has come and gone. The Electronic Entertainment Expo is the annual showcase of what gamers can look forward to for the next year and while this year's event may have been milder than ones in the past, there were still plenty of standouts and surprise announcements.
Here are six of the most interesting games that were either announced or elaborated on during this year's show.
A Way Out
The most interesting offerings from Electronic Arts this year was definitely the announcement of "A Way Out," a third person action adventure game about a duo of inmates plotting a prison break.
While that in and of itself isn't particularly groundbreaking, the twist here is that the game is being designed exclusively to be played with two people, each controlling a character doing their part in the escape. Developed by the creator of the indie hit "Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons," another game that centered on two-person puzzle dynamics, it will be interesting to see how the co-op gameplay pans out on a big budget title.
At the very least it will doubtlessly make for some entertaining Let's Plays once the YouTube crowd gets ahold of it.
Dragon Ball Fighter Z
For a show that ended more than twenty years ago, the staying power of "Dragon Ball Z" is nothing short of uncanny. Even today, video games based on the legendary anime series come out on a regular basis.
"Dragon Ball Fighter Z" may just be the latest in a long line of video game adaptation, but it has the potential to really stand out. This 2-D fighter is being developed by Arc System Works, who created the Guilty Gear and BlazBlue franchises. Those games set a new standard for 2-D fighting games, particularly in how they use 3-D graphics to simulate 2-D sprites.
Applying that expertise to the DBZ franchise means that there's a good chance that "Dragon Ball Fighter Z" will not just be mechanically sound, but will also be one of the most visually interesting games to watch for in the competitive scene.
Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle
Once notoriously reclusive, Nintendo has been uncharacteristically willing to work with other developers in recent times, licensing their most popular franchises out to third party developers to create games they wouldn't make on their own. "Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle" may be the most unusual of these collaborations as Ubisoft combines Mario characters with their goofy rabbit franchise to create a tactical strategy game in the vein of "XCOM."
I never expected to see a game where you could arm Mario with a hand cannon and command him to lay down suppressing fire against a team of cartoonish rabbits. Now that such a game exists, I can only wonder why it took so long.
Beyond Good and Evil 2
This is a game that I've been anticipating for 14 years. The original "Beyond Good and Evil," was a cult hit in 2003, telling the tale of a clever photojournalist and her anthropomorphic pig mentor uncovering a nefarious government conspiracy and participating in a revolution. The game ended on a cliffhanger and was intended to be the first of a trilogy, but mediocre sales cut those plans short.
Every few years rumors pop up about Ubisoft developing the long awaited sequel, with Ubisoft themselves releasing a teaser trailer in 2008, but so far an actual game has yet to materialize.
Until now.
The good news is that it looks like "Beyond Good and Evil 2" is actually happening. The bad news… it's a prequel. Fourteen years of waiting to find out what happens after the first game, and Ubisoft is making a game about what happened before.
I still have doubts that this game will actually see the light of day, but it will be interesting to see where Ubisoft goes with it from here.
Spider-Man
Announced last year, Insomniac Games finally released gameplay footage of their PlayStation 4 exclusive Spider-Man title and it looks like it could be the best game featuring the web-slinger in a long time.
The gameplay sequence shows a lot of inspiration from Rocksteady Studios' Arkham series, which set a new standard for super-hero games. If Insomniac can do for Spider-Man what Rocksteady did for Batman, this will definitely be a game to look out for.
Super Mario Odyssey
I have a confession to make. I've never been a fan of Mario's 3-D adventures. Sure, I played and enjoyed "Mario 64," which practically created the 3-D platformer genre, but subsequent games like "Super Mario Sunshine" and "Super Mario Galaxy" left me cold.
But "Super Mario Odyssey," coming out for the Nintendo Switch later this year, has caught my attention in a way that previous titles haven't. The basic game loop is the same. Mario has to explore a series of themed worlds, collecting a number of objects along the way by completing a series of unique challenges.
This time though, Nintendo has introduced a mechanic that lets Mario take control of enemies and objects, opening up basically unlimited game design options. Watching video of Mario possessing Goombas, taxi cabs, and even a dinosaur, I was surprised at how much I found myself looking forward to exploring this game just to see all the different things you could do.
Travis Fischer is a news writer for Mid-America Publishing and is doubtlessly going to lose a lot of time to Mario XCOM.