Bloom lighting, camera, action!
Last year, we dramatised the events of E3 2012 into an imaginary Hollywood blockbuster. This year's show has been even more dramatic, so we decided to do the same. Over the next few pages you'll find all the main points of the show scaled up into a grand cinematic spectacle, with all the main players cast with fitting Hollywood stars (a few of whom have been recast from last year to fit their new plotlines).
There's action. There's adventure. There's villainy. And there are really long queues for all of it! Grab some popcorn, settle down, and enjoy the fictional movie sequel event of the year, as we take you through it player by player. First up, and instrumental to the whole plot...
Don Mattrick, as played by...
James Spader
Because: Mattrick is the obvious candidate for the villain of this year's E3 movie, and Spader has the requisite blend of slickness, underlying sinister nature, and liability to go postal at any moment.
After unapologetically announcing the Xbox One's universally unpopular DRM and online connectivity mandates and telling those who don't like it to buy an Xbox 360, Don goes back behind closed doors to discuss the final stage of his eldritch plan with the rest of the Microsoft execs. Upon launch, not only will the Xbox One own every game you buy, but it will use the bundled Kinect camera to steadily 'bagsy' everything in your house, claiming ownership of all of your property for Microsoft and then offering to 'sell' it back to you by way of a long-term license agreement (Xbox Live Gold required to initiate contract).
And those Xbox 360s? All new models will secretly be Xbox Ones inside, their entire shiny outer surfaces being giant, omni-directional camera lenses. They will communicate back their findings via secret WiFi, creating a huge, cloud-based Microsoft inventory of all of the western world's possessions. But who can stop this villainy? Well...
Jack Tretton, as played by...
William Shatner
Because: They look exactly the same, and Shatner's once-heroic, now advert-filled career makes him perfect to portray the story of an unlikely surprise hero. Also, they're both big cuddly goofballs with a penchant for well-placed snark.
Growing in confidence after getting a whole press conference all to himself last year, Jack hears about Don's plan and lets rip on stage, with a five-minute tirade in the name of truth, honour, justice, and good living for all. The orchestra swells. A child in the front row cries a single tear of pride. Losing the run of himself during his impassioned outpouring of all that is right, Jack doesn't notice the crowd rise to its feet. "Sony!", they chant. "Sony! Sony! Sony!"
In a character-defining moment, Jack realises what he has put in motion and, choking back tears of his own, vows to lead his new people towards a victory for all humankind. But elsewhere in the convention centre, dark events are transpiring which will escalate the conflict to a degree few can yet imagine... Cut to...
Yves Guillemot and Aisha Tyler, as played by...
John Lithgow and Lana Kane from Archer
Because: Lithgow looks exactly like Guillemot and we need someone a bit creepy for his plotline. Lana Kane just because.
Following his role last year as allegiance-free trickster with his cheeky taunts of pre-announcement next-gen gaming, Yves prepares to continue as he set out. However, with no enigmatic next-gen ambiguity to play with, his confidence is shaky, and takes a (literally) massive hit when his unfortunate juxtaposition next to Aisha Tyler gives him a crippling attack of Short-Man Syndrome. Self-confidence spiralling out of sight and pent-up frustrations building, the knock-out blow comes when he discovers that Microsoft has beaten him to the punch with one of his most innovative ideas. Its Quantum Break hybrid game/TV show idea has overshadowed his similar Rabbids strategy before he's even announced it.
Now a spiteful ball of pain and vengeance, he goes full-Vader, turning to the Dark Side out of desperation and joining Microsoft with Don Mattrick as his Palpatine. He might have lost his moral path on life, but at least now he can be on the winning side, right? Well maybe not, because about to be spurred into action is...
David Cage, as played by...
Phillip Seymour Hoffman
Because: Only Phillip Seymour Hoffman has the required blend of curmudgeonly angst and worn-down existential dread.
Devout narrative-tinkering Sony man Cage is enjoying his Beyond: Two Souls presenation (as much as any man can enjoy anything with the heavy burden of human emotion weighing down upon him during every waking moment). But then he finds out about Yves Guillemot's defection. It's just too much to bear*. His fellow countryman, pledging allegiance to the competition, over a matter of interactive narrative? While choosing to take the cheap interactive TV route, rather than striving to make video games that play like movies? The disappointment crushes Cage. He can stand no more. Declaring Guillemot dead to him, he volunteers as Jack's Captain in the field, and sets about building an army. Anyway, next up...
*Note: During this most dramatic scene, Cage will be temporarily played by a computer generated version of Phillip Seymour Hoffman, because as Cage himself is always telling us, the true, nuanced depths of human emotion can only be evoked using a shitload of next-gen graphics.
Peter Moore, as played by...
Alan Rickman, a la Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves
Because: Only bearded Rickman can evoke the same 17th-century-wizard-trapped-out-of-time vibe as Moore.
Peter Moore is the surprise twist of this year's E3 plotline. With the opposing ranks of the final battle assembled on each side of the convention centre, the odds look tipped in Microsoft's favour. With Mattrick and Guillemot leading a swarming army of Kinect-powered robo-repo men, all looks lost for the softer, fleshier, more emotional forces of Tretton and Cage.
But Mattrick has become too confident. With the Microsoft boss assuming that his DRM-heavy message will garner the allegiance of online-pass originator EA, Peter Moore pulls a surprise out of his robes. After commenting of his support for the used games market and his remorse at his erroneous online pass decision, he switches sides. Riding over the horizon with last second-support for Sony, he's the Gandalf to E3's Battle of Helm's Deep. With Moore and EA on board, maybe, just maybe, the good guys can win this one.
But who else is operating on the sidelines? Well there's...
Hideo Kojima, as played by...
Jeff Goldblum
Because: Only Jeff Goldblum has the necessary quota of quirk, sharp fashion sense and cool glasses to play Kojima. And Hollywood doesn't care about racial accuracy in film casting.
Picking up where his role as post-modern narrator last year left off, Kojima stays out of the battle, instead wandering the show floor enigmatically, making wry existential comments about the feud from a neutral perspective. He has to, with Metal Gear Solid 5 going multi-format. There's talk of war, the dehumanising nature of technology, and man's unerring ability to find purpose through conflict. He talks directly to the audience a lot, and his bits of the film are the only ones in 3D, for some reason. It's probably Brechtian.
And finally there's...
Satoru Iwata, Reggie Fils-Aime and Shigeru Miyamoto, as played by...
The guys from The Hangover
Because: Why not?
With no next-gen reveals to make, the Nintendo boys step out of the main storyline to become the comic relief sub-plot. They've come to E3 with a whole line-up to show off, but got drunk on the eve of the conference and lost the new core-series Mario and Zelda games that were to be the centrepieces of their Wii U presentation. They spend the whole show hazily bumbling around trying to find them, while getting into all kinds of hilarious hijinx along the way. Switch out the tiger for a giant ape and the plotline is complete.
The punchline comes as they find the missing games during a post-credits Easter egg (they were under Iwata's Luigi hat all along, he having put them in there for safekeeping after hitting the sauce and then walked around the whole show (un)blissfully unaware that the object of his quest was sitting on top of his head the whole time). The games are truly industry-changing, with hitherto unimagined graphics and gameplay that would have won E3 in an instant. All three men spin around to get the attention of the assembled E3 crowd, but by that point every has left or is dead, bar the passing cleaner who raises an eyebrow and utters a cursory "Nice" as he's sweeping up.
Show's over?
So that's it for our E3 movie adaptation for this year. But are there any plot-points we missed? Any perfect pieces of casting you'd love to see? Let us know.
And while you're here, why not check out some of our similarly silly E3 coverage? E3 2013 if it had happened in 1983 would be a good start, as would 8 ways it could be worse for Xbox chief Don Mattrick.
